sign in sign up
<<
Home , Central Africa Party, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Monckton Commission, Munali (constituency), Munali Secondary School

A discussion between

A discussion between and COLIN MORRIS

KENNETH KAUNDA KENNETH DAVID KAUNDA aged 36 is Northern 's most controversial African Leader. He states his claim for Black Government. Is he the "black Mamba" of African plotting violence behind a front of Ghandian passive resistance, or is he the "lion of the North" Central Africa's man of destiny and a Northern Rhodesian Nyerere? He makes the claim for "One Man one Vote", "Independence for ", "the break up of the Federation", "the power of non violent methods" for achieving his declared aims. The policy and programme of the United National Independence Party is set forth and argued with unusual clarity and force. One may disagree fundamentally with Kaunda, but one cannot dismiss him as a selfish politician lusting for power.

Northern News Photograph. Colin Morris, Merfyyn Temple and Kenneth Kaunda preparing "Black Government" in February 1960.

BLACK GOVERNMENT? A DISCUSSION BETWEEN COLIN MORRIS AND KENNETH KA UNDA UNITED SOCIETY FOR CHRISTIAN LITERATURE , NORTHERN- RHODESIA 1960

Printed by Rhodesian Printers Ltd., Monterey Avenue, Ndola, Northern Rhodesia

CONTENTS Foreword Sir Stewart Gore-Browne V Preface Merfyn M. Temple 1 Chapter L Profile Kenneth Kaunda Merfyn M. Temple 3 2. Profile Colin Morris Merfyn M. Temple 23 DISCUSSION Kenneth Kaunda and Colin Morris 3. "We want a colour blind Society" 41 4. "We want of Speech and Movement" 57 5. "We want one man one vote" 67 6. "We want an end to Federation" 78 7. "The Future of " 92 S. Conclusion 111

FOREWORD I have been asked to write a foreword to "Black Government". I have not had an opportunity to read the book, nor do I know the Reverend Colin Morris personally. But I have known Mr. Kaunda, and admired his sterling character, for many years. If anything I can write or say can help him in the task he has undertaken, I am only too glad to try and do so. For myself, I have known Northern Rhodesia for all but fifty years. My home, and the home of my children, and my grandchildren, is here. In a Day address last year the people said: "We thank Sir Stewart, and we think he thanks us too, to reach this year while still working together fraternally. There is nothing which we people have blamed him, and neither does Sir Stewart himself blame us." That is indeed true, and as it should be. But what of the future? There is no need to panic, but is it not clear to anyone whose head is not buried in the facile sands of optimism that Northern Rhodesia is about to be faced with a crisis compared to which troubles and set-becks of the last half-century are the merest trifles? Is not the situation here today something like the situation in Britain in the years just before the passing of the Great Reform Bill in 1832, when the conflict was between Privilege and the People, and when failure to reach a successful conclusion would have meant revolution? The problem in Northern Rhodesia today has become a psychological one, and pointing to the undoubted prosperity and material progress of recent years will not solve it. What Africans are demanding with no uncertain voice is what the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Nehru, calls "The Fourth Freedom; Freedom from Contempt". Waiting four years, or even a year, before we do anything about it is not merely futile, it is dangerous.

Myself, I agree, fundamentally, with Mr. Kaunda that the first objective today must be the granting of a genuinely liberal franchise on a common roll basis. Such a franchise must confer equal voting powers on equal terms for both races, without any disingenuous catches or strings attached to it. The present franchise with it's provisions for devaluing votes which appear dangerous to the dominant race, requiring the consent of Chiefs for the nomination of individual Africans, (imagine Richard Cobden having to obtain the consent of an early nineteenth century House of Lords before he could stand for Parliament), is neither fair nor just. It's replacement by a franchise which was both would go a long way towards restoring that confidence between races which has been lost of late years, but which is so necessary if we are, all of us, to live in peace and prosperity. If granting such franchise leads to an African majority in the Legislature, no matter. What does matter is delay. Finally, those of us who know Mr. Kaunda feel sure we can trust him. He is certainly not a careerist nor a would-be , still less a terrorist. But that does not mean that we minimise the difficulties and dangers that lie before any leader striving to follow a straight path today. We can only hope, and pray, that he will be given strength as well as wisdom to accomplish his task. , STEWART GORE-BROWN. Northern Rhodesia. 29/4/60.

ILLUSTRATIONS Colin Morris, Kenneth Kaunda and Merfyn Temple preparing "Black Government?" Kenneth Kaunda addresses a meeting Colin Morris in his pulpit Notice outside the Free Church, Northern Rhodesia, of which Rev. Colin Morris is Minister. Kenneth Kaunda Frontispiece facing 16 facing 32 facing 48 facing 96

PREFACE Mr. the British Prime Minister speaking to both Houses of Parliament in Cape Town on Feb. 3rd. 1960 said: "The is blowing through the continent. The most striking of all the impressions I have formed since I left a month ago is of the strength of national consciousness. Whether we like it or not, this growth is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact. This means, I would judge that we must come to terms with it. I sincerely believe that if we cannot do so, we may imperil the precarious balance between East and West on which the peace of the world depends." These words have taken some time to sink into our consciousness here in Northern Rhodesia. There are still many who do not heed the warning, though recent events in the Union of are hammering home their truth. That the peace of the world may be imperiled by our failure to come to terms with African nationalism should surely give us pause for thought. This small book has been produced with one purpose in view; that is to help all of us, African, Asian, European and Eurafrican to accept the political fact of the rising tide of African national consciousness. So urgent did some of us feel this need to be, that at the risk of being seriously misunderstood, we set out

BLACK GOVERNMENT ? with our meagre resources of time, and talent, and money to produce a book which would not only present the case of the Northern Rhodesian African Nationalist, but subject it to rigorous analysis. Speed was the essence of this project, and we had no time to gather a mass of evidence, nor to consult a wide variety of opinion, so taking a calculated risk we asked two men who were themselves deeply involved in our political situation to write in a matter of hours what they both would have preferred to set down over a period of weeks or months. No one is more conscious than we are of this book's shortcomings, its wide gaps, its over simplification of intricate problems, but we hope that what it lacks in perspective and balance it makes up for by its immediacy, what defects appear in the polish of its prose it makes up for in the rough authenticity of its dialogue. Though of necessity this is a hurried book, for events march swiftly in Central Africa today, we believe it can be used, if read widely during this crucial year of 1960 to enable men and women to face without fear the political realities of our time. We hope especially it will be read by African Nationalists themselves enabling them to understand that on the journey to the "Canaan of their dreams" they would do well to heed the voice of the christian churches of this land. Even after Colin Morris and Kenneth Kaunda had agreed to meet we should have made little progress without the enthusiastic co-operation of our typists, our Printer, and a gift of money from the London Committee of the United Society for Christian Literature. We acknowledge with gratitude the help we have received from the Editors of the "Northern News" and "African Mail", also permission to quote from "Partnership" published by S.C.M. and "The Ridley Report". Our thanks are given too to all those Africans and Europeans who gave the information contained in the brief profiles of our two authors.

CHAPTER ONE Profile of Kenneth Kaunda BY MERFYN M. TEMPLE Mr. John Gaunt, at one time a District Commissioner, now Northern Rhodesia's most powerful white politician, has a reputation for speaking his mind. At a meeting attended by a thousand of Lusaka's European community he said, after comparing Mr. .and Dr. Banda with : "They tell us to come to terms with the black Nationalists. Pah! we might as well come to terms with a black mamba." ,Criticising Kenneth Kaunda for wearing a toga at -public meetings he remarked: "The only kind of nationalist dress I came across in this country was the loin cloth." Mr. John Roberts, the leader of the in the Northern Rhodesia Legislative Council, on March 2nd, gave public warning against the dangers -of power hungry African politicians who were claiming independence for Northern Rhodesia in 1960. Com-

BLACK GOVERNMENT? menting on the news that Mr. Macleod, the Colonial Secretary, was to visit Northern Rhodesia he said: "Although the visit of Mr. Macleod will be a short one, I hope there will be sufficient time for him to form an assessment of what is really behind the claims of the African Nationalist bodies. It is my opinion that these people realise they have only a limited time in which to attain their ambitions. They realise that there is a growing group of mature Africans who will be a challenge to them in the years ahead, and they realise that unless they achieve power through the medium of delusion now they never will. There are for example many Africans holding responsible positions in the civil service and industry - people who are aware of the difficulties and problems of modern government, and who might well go into politics themselves later. The present African Leaders know of the existence of such Africans and are pressing on with the most tremendous haste in an attempt to secure their own positions." Mr. Gaunt and Mr. Roberts in these statements typify the extreme and the moderate European view of Kenneth Kaunda Northern Rhodesia's African Nationalist leader. But what of the reverse side of the coin? What do his own people say of him? One of his closest associates Mr. Frank Chitambala has written: "When Congress was banned by the Northern Rhodesia Government, all its leaders were arrested and rusticated to remote areas. Kenneth Kaunda and I were rusticated to the District of the North Western Province. While I was with him there I learned many things about him and I think I can say that I understand him as well as most people. In his struggle for

PROFILE OF KENNETI KAUNDA Black Government Mr. Kaunda is committed to uncompromising measures. He cares very little about his own personal troubles, he is a man who is above troubles. Any troubles are under him and he is above them. He is my idea of a true national leader, faithful, honest and sincere. I believe he is a man of destiny for he is the first African Nationalist to have dared to name Northern Rhodesia with an African national name of Zambia. This great name of Zambia is in the mind of many Africans and when this country is free it should be called the sovereign state of Zambia". Where is the truth between these two views of Kenneth Kaunda? This is probably the most vital political question in Northern Rhodesia today, for "Coming to terms with National Consciousness" may mean no more, nor no less, than coming to terms with Kaunda. Is he to be compared with a black mamba, the most deadly of the snakes ? Is he as Mr. Roberts suggests an ambitious politician lusting for personal power? Is he, to use the title of a recent article in "The Drum" "The Lion of the North"? Is he a potential African Ghandi of the unborn state of Zambia? Does the truth perhaps lie somewhere between these extremes? If it does, then on what side of the border between them does it lie? Any glib answer to that question is sure to be wrong for Kaunda is a riddle. He is a riddle to his own people, for how can a man with as gentle a nature as Kaunda's continue to ride the tiger of "African politics". The African people themselves have no illusions about "politics". Ask any minister or priest of an African Church. He will tell you that he tries to keep his young men out of politics, for he knows by bitter experience, that those who have no firm grounding in the Faith when drawn into a political movement no longer care for their church. Politics become for them a new religion, and all too easily their emotions

BLACK GOVENMENT? can be whipped up to a religious frenzy that makes them say things no Christian could ever say. Kaunda is a politician, yet he seems to be a good man, that is the riddle. Kaunda is a riddle to the European. How can the leader of the banned Zambia Congress be a man of peace and reasonableness? Missionaries and welfare workers who lived and worked in African townships at the time of the 1959 "emergency" know that the mere mention of the word "Zambia" struck terror into the hearts of ordinary men and women. No thinking man who reads the report of the "Ridley Enquiry" which tells of the circumstances which gave rise to the making of the public safety regulations before the Northern Rhodesia elections in 1959 can doubt that the Governor had good grounds for fearing violence if he did not ban Zambia. Yet Kaunda is utterly convincing when he speaks about "non- violence". If he was in control of Zambia, why did he permit violence. If he was not in control, what right has he to call himself a leader? Again and again when trying to understand what are the motives which underlie the actions of the African people, the European is baffled by what seems to him a complete lack of ordinary logic. How often have those of us who have sat round a camp fire and heard Africans swapping conundrums felt that not only the riddle, but its answer is completely inexplicable to our European mentality. But the difficulties in understanding the African approach to politics must not absolve us from the urgent necessity of trying to find the truth. After all European logic has not always been proved right in Africa. One thing is certain, Kenneth Kaunda cannot be understood in isolation. He is a man of his own day and generation, a product of his times, and without knowledge of his background and the contemporary situation in Northern Rhodesia, he will inevitably be misunderstood. PROFILE OF KENNETH KAUNDA EARLY INFLUENCES Lubwa is a Mission of the Church of Scotland near , which lies a few miles West of the Great North Road at a point 120 miles south of the border, and 150 miles from Karonga in . In the great church of Lubwa, built of dressed stone by African craftsmen trained at Livingstonia, is a tablet commemorating the fact that in 1905 David Kaunda an Evangelist of Livingstonia first preached the Gospel to the BaBemba in the Lubwa area. For eight years he made his lonely christian witness amongst a foreign tribe. So successful was he in winning their affection and loyalty, that in 1913 Mr. MacMinn was appointed by the Church of Scotland Mission to build a permanent station at Lubwa. David Kaunda went home to Nyasaland to find a wife, and came back with one of his own Tonga women, one of the best educated women in Nyasaland at that time, she spoke fluent English and had training in domestic science. Kenneth the second son was born in 1924. His mother as well as bringing up her family of two sons and two daughters in the fear and admonition of the Lord was matron of the Girls' Boarding school, and a teacher. She had the reputation of being kindhearted, a strict disciplinarian, and a deeply religious woman who herself conducted family prayers night and morning. In that remote place, over five hundred miles from Lusaka, at the end of a long and dusty road, Kenneth Kaunda grew up. His world was the world of "the Mission" where his father was right hand man to the missionary, and his mother the leader amongst the women. He had the good fortune seldom granted to African children of his generation of being able to go to school at the age of seven. In those days the best schools were on the mission stations, and he received the best education it was possible for any African child at the time to be given.

BLACK GOVERNMENT? Apart from the occasional visit of a District Commissioner Kenneth saw no white people except McMinn the minister, and Dr. Brown the mission doctor. Life on a Mission in the early thirties was a pleasant life. McMinn when he was not touring the villages to preach was at work translating the whole Bible into CiBemba. He made his translation from the original Greek and Hebrew and took endless trouble in long consultation with the village elders to find exactly the right word in CiBemba. The doctor was busy, not only in his hospital, but amongst the surrounding villages. So greatly did he desire to be identified with the people amongst whom he worked that he left instructions that on his death he should be buried according to African custom, not in a coffin but wrapped in a blanket. He lies in a grave at Lubwa alongside his old colleague David Kaunda. Compared with the stagnant lives of the surrounding villages, the mission was a hive of activity. There were always bricks and tiles being made, for the church and the school, the missionaries' houses and the hospital had to be built. Women missionaries came out from Scotland to help in the school and the hospital - they all had to learn CiBemba. They lived in the houses up on the hill, and Kenneth lived with his mother and father in a house near the school, but they all worshipped together on Sunday in the Church; they studied the Bible together - always in Chibemba - they visited each other in their homes. There were Christmas parties in the big house on the hill, there were sports days at the school. The White missionary was master, but the people on the mission thought of him as the headman of their community, their "father" who was always accessible. Mrs. Kaunda instilled into her children at a very early age the idea that they should serve the Church. Her two sons and one daughter became teachers, her other daughter worked in the hospital as a nurse.

PROFLE OF KENNETH KAUNDA SCHOOL DAYS By 1938 Kenneth Kaunda had reached Standard VI, the top class in the school, and John Nelson, now a master at , was his teacher. He remembers Kenneth as one of the brightest boys in the class and natural leader of his age group. He was as active outside the classroom as in it, a keen footballer and Boy Scout. Having obtained good marks in his Standard VI examinations he was selected for the Teacher Training Course. While being trained as a Teacher he continued his studies, and when the opened in Lusaka he was accepted for Standard VII and VIII. A young man of twenty-two with the highest educational qualifications any African could obtain in Northern Rhodesia, and with a teaching certificate, he returned to Lubwa to teach in the Boys' Boarding School. John Nelson was delighted to have him back, and soon he had taken his father's old place as the missionary's right hand man. The position as headmaster of a big boarding school carried with it considerable responsibilities for so young a man. It required qualities of tact and forbearance, for all the other members of his staff were older men. An incident from this period related by one of his pupils illustrates the affectionate regard his boys had for him. At that time there was no Standard V and VI at the Church of Scotland mission school of in the Eastern Province, so the boys from that District used to trek across the Luangwa valley- a six days' journey - to attend the school at Lubwa. At Christmas time 1945 the rivers were so swollen in the Luangwa valley that it was not possible for the Chasefu boys to go home for their holidays. There was a shortage of food at Lubwa, but Kenneth Kaunda and his mother kept thirty-four of them for six weeks at their village six miles from the mission station. Like his mother

BLACK GOVERNMENT? Kenneth had a reputation for being kindhearted, though in school he was a strict disciplinarian. THE By 1947 Kaunda had decided that it was time for him to gain wider experience. He had begun to serve on various advisory committees at the local Boma. As. a first class guitarist he had led concert parties on visits to Broken Hill, his horizons were beginning to widen. He handed in his resignation as a teacher. It was regretfully accepted by John Nelson who wanted him to stay on at Lubwa, but did not feel he could stand in the way of greater opportunities for his old pupil. Kaunda travelled to the Copperbelt and got employment as a Welfare Assistant at the Mine. He regards 1947 as the most crucial year in his life. For the first time he felt the full shock of the Colour Bar, he began to rub against Europeans who spoke to him not as a fellow human being but as some lesser breed. He heard other men referring to him as a "munt" and a "kaffir". He became a member of the local Welfare association and for the first time heard his own people talking politics seriously. It was the African Welfare Association founded by Mr. Dauti Yamba in 1946 that was to become the mother of the African National Congress. After only a few months as a Welfare Assistant Kaunda returned to his profession as a teacher and was appointed headmaster of the U.M.C.B. School at . He was one of the first to join the African National Congress when it was formed in 1948, and very soon he found that political activity absorbed all his time and thought out of school. He decided to resign from teaching and return to his home where he. hoped to set up in business and carry on with his political activity. TRADER He went back to his mother's "farm" near Lubwa. and started trading in second hand clothes which at that time could be bought cheaply in the Belgian Congo..

PROFILE OF KENNiETH KAUNDA He would cycle the three hundred miles to the Congo border, buy the bales of old clothes, consign them on Thatcher and Hobson's road transport, then hurry back on his cycle to Lubwa to be in time to off load them there. His ability to cycle long distance without seeming to tire stood him in good stead when he came to organise the Congress branches scattered over the length and breadth of the Northern Province, an area as great as . During this period he came into conflict with the missionaries at his old station at Lubwa over the "federation" proposals. He had been reading Shaw's "Man of Destiny", and in an open letter to the missionary in charge at Lubwa dated March 25th, 1952, quoted Shaw: "When the Englishman wants a new market for his adulterated Manchester goods he sends a missionary to teach the Natives the Gospel of Peace. The Natives kill the missionary, he flies to arms in defence of Christianity, fights for it, conquers for it, and takes the market as a reward from heaven." If you intend being of service to the British Government in the way described by Shaw you have come at a wrong time. Our forefathers killed no European in this Protectorate, and we are going to make sure we kill no European, missionary or otherwise for political reasons - Nay we won't - Reverend sir. Preach how you may we shall struggle for our nation's survival within the British Scope of struggling. We are not struggling against the British Government, but against the Federal case." In 1953 Kaunda was appointed General Secretary of the Congress, and for the next six years he was the organising brain behind its administration. As a protest against the colour bar in shops he organised the boycott of the Butcheries where African women were forced

BLACK GOVERNMENT? to wait in long queues at a hole in the wall, while European customers were served as they came in at the counter. The sight of women being arrested for taking part in the boycott led him to make a vow that he would never eat meat again. To this day he remains a strict vegetarian. In 1955 Kaunda along with his President Harry Nkumbula served a prison sentence for having in his possession a number of publications that Government had declared to be prohibited reading. Among them were several books supplied to him by a prominent Asian business man on the subject of Ghandi's campaigns of non-violence. TRAVEL Kaunda's first experience of travel overseas came in 1957 when he went to London to attend a Labour Party Commonwealth Conference. After the conference he stayed behind to study and visited a number of places in the United Kingdom. He spoke to a group of students at Oxford one of whom writing to his father in Northern Rhodesia said "How is it that this quiet spoken and reasonable man is regarded as an extremist in Africa?" His visit to London was cut short by an urgent call from Congress Headquarters to return to Lusaka to deal with a crisis that had arisen. On his return the "African Times" began to build him up as a potential rival to Nkumbula as A.N.C. President, but he replied by making a public statement that he had no desire to oust his old leader. There followed a period of mysterious illness, a chest complaint which neither Government nor mission doctors could diagnose nor cure. He accepted a travel grant from "The Indian Council for Cultural Relations" to visit India for three months. The rumour spread around that he had gone to India to consult the Indian wizards for a cure. On his way to India he attended a Youth Conference in Tanganyika and was elected its chairman.

PROFILE OF KENNETH KAUNDA His tour of India enabled him to hear at first hand from Indian Congressmen how they had conducted their non-violence campaigns which led to India's "liberation". Later in he stayed with a Negro friend of Martin Luther King and learnt more of nonviolent techniques from him. It is not without significance that three of Kaunda's lieutenants in U.N.I.P. have spent time in India. TIE SPLIT WITH A.N.C. He came back to Rhodesia to find the country in a political turmoil over the proposed changes to be made in the Legislative Council. The Congress did not accept the Government proposals contained in the White Paper. Its leaders believed that Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom would be guided very much by resolutions of the territorial legislatures when in 1960 the Federal Constitution came up for review. They feared the loss of Northern Rhodesia's Protectorate status, and they argued that this could only be avoided if Africans in the Northern Rhodesia Legislative Council had achieved parity. It therefore put forward its own proposals based on parity and demonstrated its opposition to the Government proposals by burning the White Paper publicly at various centres in the Territory. The publication of a despatch from the Secretary of State for the Colonies dated 10th December, 1958, conveying his decision to adopt the White Paper with certain modifications made it clear to Congress members that their attempt to secure a constitution based on parity had failed. Shortly after, Mr. Nkumbula and his followers though not accepting all the features of the new Constitution decided not to support a boycott of the elections, but to encourage Congress members to vote, and he himself stood as a candidate. It was on this issue that Kaunda broke away from the African National Congress and formed his own Zambia Congress. He believed that the new constitution

BLACK GOVERNENT? was designed for the benefit of the Europeans. Zambia's leaders attacked it on the grounds that there were only eight African, but fourteen European elected members in spite of the very large disparity in the numbers of the population of each race. They disliked the provision requiring certain candidates in the special rural constituencies to obtain the consent of two-thirds of the chiefs. They said that the special vote should not be devalued as was at present provided in certain cases; this latter provision they said amounted to treating many Africans as half human or second-class people. They said that the Africans to be elected in the Urban constituencies would be elected by the large European majorities there, and would be little better than stooges. Further, if a nominated member were an African he would be chosen by the Governor after consultation with the leader of the majority party in the House, which was sure to be the United Federal Party. Quite apart from the alleged defects in the Constitution these witnesses stressed the results which in their view would emerge from the acceptance and operation of the Constitution. They were greatly alarmed at the prospect of dominion status being granted to the Federation. This, they thought, would lead to bad conditions for Africans and possibly even to a situation similar to that in South Africa. They concluded that the new Constitution was designed to hand power over to the European. They argued that when the review of the Federal Constitution came up for discussion in 1960, the territorial legislatures would debate whether or not dominion status should be applied for. The Northern Rhodesia Legislature as at present constituted, would almost certainly vote in favour of it. Following on this and similar acceptances in the other legislatures the Federal Government would be able to report to the British Government that the territorial legislatures were all in agreement that dominion status should be

PROFILE oF KENNETH KAUNDA granted. The British Government would then grant dominion status and the protection of the British Government would be withdrawn on the assumption that the peoples of Northern Rhodesia had agreed, which they said was certainly not the true case as far as Africans were concerned. For this reason, they said, it was essential to do away with the new Constitution and replace it by one more favourable to Africans. They thought that if Africans could be persuaded not to vote at the March elections it would make it apparent to the public in the United Kingdom and in Africa that the Africans in Northern Rhodesia were very dissatisfied with the Constitution and something more favourable to them would emerge, possibly after the sitting of a constitution commission. Boycorr The stage was set for boycott, the biggest boycott Kaunda had ever organised, and he believed the most crucial. He was driven by fear that if the new constitution were to be accepted Dominion Status would become inevitable, and Sir would become the undisputed ruler of Central Africa. Kaunda was no stranger to the dangers of boycott. He knew from experience how quickly peaceful protest can degenerate into intimidation, but his belief in the non-violent method had been reinforced by his visits to India. AccRA It was at this point that he went to Accra to attend the Pan Africa Conference. Non-violence was the theme of discussion but at the end of the conference a plea was made to support the Algerian Freedom Fighters, and a resolution was passed giving full support to all "Fighters for freedom in Africa, to all those who resort to peaceful means of non-violence and , as well as to all those who are compelled to retaliate against violence to obtain national independence and freedom for the people." This resolution went on to say that where such retaliation became

BLACK GOVERNMENT? necessary the conference condemned legislation designed to deal with those fighting for their independence as if they were ordinary criminals. Fully aware of the dangers and knowing the consequences of civil disobedience Kaunda launched his campaign of protest. The story from this point onwards is best told in the words of the report of "The inquiry into the circumstances which gave rise to the making of the safeguards of elections and public safety Regulations" (Ridley Report, Government Printer, Lusaka 1959). REVIEW OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH LED UP TO THE MAKING OF THE REGULATIONS "Whilst at the Accra Conference the leaders of the , Nyasaland and both Northern Rhodesia congresses signed a charter committing them to a joint campaign against federation. At its first council meeting at the end of December, Zambia made it clear that it was entirely opposed to federation and to the new Northern Rhodesia Constitution. It demanded "self-government now" and announced a boycott of the elections to be held in March. This announcement caused fear amongst the populations of the towns of Lusaka and Broken Hill particularly amongst African voters, because Africans knew that a boycott almost invariably led to picketing, intimidation force and violence; there were widely circulated reports that actual injury would be inflicted on Africans who took part in the elections; and others feared their houses might be set on fire because over the last months there had been many cases of arson in Lusaka which were clearly due to a political motive. Though the restricted persons who gave evidence said that the boycott was to be limited to Zambia's own members and to giving peaceable explanations to other persons I have come to the conclusion that members of Zambia intended to use intimidation, force and violence in carrying out the boycott and that they

African Mail Photograph. Kenneth Kaunda addresses a meeting. (Note Police microphone).

PROFILE OF KENNETH KAUNDA took the actions set out after paragraph 66. They also took the actions set out after paragraph 91. Whilst organising its boycott, Zambia also planned to obtain self-government by other violent means, in the use of which the Accra Conference resolution gave encouragement. Many public speeches were made, containing statements calculated to stir up strife between the races and untrue statements made with the intent to bring the governments, departments, police and public officers into hatred and disrepute and to inspire contempt towards them; and in private, such matters as arson, causing malicious damage to property and death and injury to persons opposed to them were discussed and planned, some in connection with the election but some of more general application. I am satisfied that the actions set out after paragraphs 70, 73, 84 and 87 were taken by members of Zambia. There is also some evidence to connect members of Zambia with conspiracy to corrupt members of the Police Force, chiefs and civil servants (please see the actions set out after paragraph 83). During this period the Zambia leaders were working towards joint action with Nyasaland and Southern Rhodesia and I have satisfied myself that in fact proposals for discussion at the "summit conference" between the leaders of the three congresses (the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress having had a disagreement) did include a suggestion that if one territory were to start a civil disobedience movement resulting in disorders the other two territories should start a similar movement in sympathy. Also if any government arrested a congress leader all three congresses should retaliate, such retaliation including arson, sabotage and attacks on Europeans. After the arrest of the Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland leaders the "summit conference" could not take place and the Zambia leaders had to act on their own. I accept the Government's allegation that Zambia

BLACK GOVERNMENT? developed a two-stage campaign, first by inflammatory but non-violent measures the leaders proposed to confront the Government with a situation in which it would be compelled to take counter-measures and arrest them. Secondly, these arrests would be the signal for widespread acts of violence and terrorism. A second team of leaders was to take the place of those arrested and they were to incite the African public to commit acts of violence and sabotage. It was proposed to create a diversion to draw off security forces to the more remote areas thus leaving Broken Hill and Lusaka free for uninterrupted action by Zambia workers. Many inflammatory speeches were made and as a result permits for certain Zambia public meetings were refused. The law was disregarded and on 8th March meetings were held in defiance of it. In the Central Province, during this latter period, there were good grounds for believing that the forces of law and order were being directly challenged and the Provincial Commissioner and police saw that this challenge would have to be accepted at some time if law and order were to be maintained. Meanwhile, on the 5th March Mr. Kaunda had issued a Press statement reminding Zambia members of the Zambia policy of non-violence and ordering them to refrain from appearing near the polling booths on polling day and from interfering on that particular day with anyone wishing to vote. However, when asked to extend this instruction to cover the intervening period Mr. Kaunda and his Treasurer-General refused to do so. A meeting was to be held at Lusaka on 14th-15th March with all Zambia branches represented but it was cancelled by Mr. Kaunda. I am satisfied that at this meeting final instructions would have been given to branch representatives as to how to conduct themselves when the leaders had been arrested and that the cancellation was due to Mr Kaunda's fear that if

PROFILE OF KENNETH KAUNDA 19 the meeting were held the Government would take action. He arranged that the instructions would be passed by word of mouth to local branches through the regional committees. It was at this stage that on the 11th March, 1959, the Regulations were made. The Zambia leaders seem to have been convinced that the last opportunity had come for them to make a bid for African self-government. This in itself was likely to drive them towards lawlessness but the impetus was all the greater through the encouragement given by the Accra resolution. However, the methods they adopted could not be tolerated by any government." KAUNDA'S PLACE IN ZAMBIA Looking back on those confused weeks before the Northern Rhodesia election of 1959 it becomes clear that Kaunda's call for non-violent militant action had drawn into Zambia many of the worst elements of African society. It also provided a home for the "action groups" of the African National Congress. The Ridley Report was not able to discover any evidence that Kaunda had personally advocated violence, nor that he uttered any untrue statements concerning the Government, but it is clear that he was not in control of Zambia. He knew that things were out of hand and fifteen days before the election he made a public statement reminding Zambia members of the Zambia policy of non-violence and ordering them to refrain from appearing in the vicinity of the polling booths on polling day and from interfering on that particular day with anyone wishing to exercise his vote. The Ridley report comments "The Government with all the information it had received had no reason to treat this announcement as sincere, particularly as when he and his Treasurer-General were asked to extend the instruction to cover the interim period to the date of the election they had refused to give such assurance or directive". BLACK GOVERNMENT? Kaunda says that he received no such request from Government. There can be little doubt that Kaunda had planned a campaign of civil disobedience. He deliberately convened a meeting without police permission. He intended that he and the Zambia leaders should go to prison. He hoped that thousands of others would follow his example. He served his nine months' prison sentence for convening an unlawful assembly and for conspiring with others to do the same. He did not stand trial for treason. Kenneth Kaunda is now free and he faces the dilemma of every nationalist in Africa today. If he is a moderate, he is neither listened to by white or black. If he is militant whatever non-violent measures he adopts may get out of control. His most difficult problem is how to build up a disciplined political party from the masses when the great majority of the people's natural leaders are prevented from taking part in politics by the fact that they hold responsible positions in Government, Church or industry, where African politics are taboo. Kaunda's dilemma is almost exactly that of Luthuli whose basic tragedy was poignantly described in the "African Mail" of April 12th, 1960. "In the past, Luthuli has been regarded by the whites as the most dangerous enemy of their supremacy; he was the central figure in the Treason Trial arrests of four years ago. But today when the white population have seen their country brought close to anarchy by the bolder racial tactics of the Pan Africanist Congress they are beginning to look towards Luthuli, as a "moderate" African leader with whom to parley. But just at the moment when he may be recognised by whites, and his warnings heeded, his following is rapidly slipping away. His natural personal leadership is great; but the state of the black

PROFILE OF KENNETH KAUNDA townships is rapidly becoming one where sound leaders can quickly be ousted by demagogues." Those who have never met Kenneth Kaunda face to face think of him as at best potentially a dangerous man. His strict self discipline- he is a non-smoker, non- drinker, and vegetarian - his intransigence, suggest the narrow minded fanatic, the ruthless extremist. But those who have met him at home in his little house in the Chilenje suburb of Lusaka with his wife and six young sons see a very different person. To quote Frank Citambala again: "Kenneth is a very handsome and well built African. His complexion is very dark, his brown deep penetrating eyes look out from a face of great determination. Grey is gradually taking colour of his black hair which he combs upright making him look like a Swahili warrior. He has a strong and pleasant voice which seems to have had a narrow escape from stammer. During any of his casual talks one might mistake him for a shy man who would never address a crowd of people. He manages a shy and dry-like smile, but from his heart. He listens more than he talks. He is quick, merciful and full of humour. You get amused to hear him crack jokes with a close friend or his wife." Before leaving for America on April 9th 1960 he said to his followers at the airport: "Non-violence is the best means of achieving our objectives. Should this and all other methods fail, I shall come back and tell my people to do what they know is right. I know and understand their aspirations, hopes and demands, and will try to convince the Colonial Secretary on my way back from the States of the urgency of the matter. Remain calm and non-violent in thought, word and deed."

22 BLACK GOVERNMENT? Perhaps by the time this book appears on the bookstalls of Northern Rhodesia we shall know the extent of Kenneth Kaunda's authority over his people.

CHAPTER TWO Profile of Colin Morris BY MERFYN M. TEMPLE Colin Morris arrived in Northern Rhodesia four years ago to become the Minister of the Free Church in Chingola, one of the mining towns of the Copperbelt. No one in Northern Rhodesia seemed to know very much about him except that he was young - twenty-six, that he was a Methodist Minister, and that he had been born and brought up in one of Britain's Northern Mining towns. He was supposed to know something of industrial chaplaincy work which seemed to be a worthwhile recommendation for any Minister coming to the heart of Central Africa's industrial revolution. What we were to learn later was that as well as being a Methodist Minister he had done research work in Industrial Relations at Nuffield College, Oxford, and that he was a specialist in labour relations in the British Mining Industry. He wasted no time in getting settled in; he set out immediately to get to know his flock, and they very

BLACK GOVERNMENT? quickly found that they had been sent as their Minister a very remarkable person. His sermons lasted anything up to an hour, but no one in his congregation was tempted to go to sleep. Whether his subject was "Spiritual Tramps" or "A Christian in a Cowboy town" the urgency and vigour of his preaching made everyone present take sides. Out of the pulpit Colin Morris neither looked nor behaved like the conventional parson. His language was strictly non-ecclesiastical, but the copper miner seemed to understand it! The town was alternately shocked and delighted. His Church members soon discovered that if they went to their Minister with their trivial concerns and petty jealousies they got short shrift, and a taste of his acid tongue, but those in real trouble found a man whose flippancy disguised a deep and vital understanding of human nature. The hard bitten miners of Nchanga and their equally tough minded wives, who never dreamed of darkening the doors of his church began to turn to this young padre when in trouble. They seemed to sense in him a corresponding toughness of character. Nothing seemed to shock him, he never offered platitudes in place of common sense advice, and he never tried to ease their hurt with the sentimental balm that is so often peddled over the trade mark of Christianity. He could speak to the people in a language they understood and when he became involved in anyone else's trouble, he would give himself entirely-his time, his thought, and all his restless energy, to find a way out for them. He in fact became so absorbed in his ministry to the needs of the European community that he had no time to spare for the tens of thousands of Africans who lived on his doorstep. He never attempted to learn one of the African languages, and he came under severe criticism from his Missionary colleagues for this. He seemed almost unaware that he lived in Africa. During a debate at the Methodist Synod of 1957 he attacked

PROFILE OF COLIN MORRIS those Missionaries who said that relations between the races could be improved by inviting African Christians to attend European churches. He maintained that the European was not ready to accept Africans, and that were Africans to be admitted to his church many of his European members would walk out. He claimed that a long period of "brain washing" was necessary before the European would accept the African. He stated that this should not begin in the church but underground-at the rock face, for it is at the place where people work that true community can best be built. But for some reason no one has yet explained, within months he had begun to preach his famous series of sermons on Church and Race (now published under the title "Anything but This!"). Many of his congregation left the Free Church, but outsiders came in to take their place. He very soon found himself the most talked about churchman in the country, and became the the centre of bitter controversy. Unlike most of his fellow clerics he had sufficient toughness to stand up to frequent misrepresentations in the Press and instead of shrinking back into himself he saw the publicity he was getting as an opportunity of gaining a hearing far beyond the walls of the Chingola Free Church. Morris' resilience under a tremendous volume of criticism--criticism which went beyond words, his brand new Church was desecrated-he puts down to to two things. "It's all a matter of psychology," he says "I love a scrap. When my views cause an outcry, I'm well content. It is when they are received with a sodden silence that I get worried. Then, either I am way off the beam, or public opinion is beyond redemption!" Secondly, Morris pays warm tribute to his supporters in the Chingola Free Church. "They are the people who deserve the credit for battling out the racial issue. For days after my controversial sermons,

BLACK GOVERNMENT? they defended me at the rock face, in shops and at tea parties. They took most of what was coming to me. I just got the kudos when the battle was over." And the battle is over. The witness of the Chingola Free Church is renowned throughout southern Africa. A recent commentator referred to two pulpits as being the most strategic in Africa. One is that of St. Mary's Cathedral, Johannesburg, bastion of Bishop Ambrose Reeves, the other that of the Chingola Free Church. It is not hard to find in Northern Rhodesia those who regard Colin Morris as nothing more than a showman, a meddler in other people's affairs, a publicity minded parson who uses the pulpit for the dissemination of his own personal political theories. But anyone who has taken the trouble to sit down and examine dispassionately the things that Colin Morris has been saying over the past four years, is forced to the conclusion that there must be some deeper motive that drives him on. He is a man with a consuming passion to speak the truth at any price, for it is fundamental to his belief that only the truth can make men free. In Colin Morris' eyes there is only one sin worth attacking, and that is the wickedness of wrapping up the truth in cotton wool. He has an unfailing instinct, as his friends well know, of detecting the bogus and the counterfeit. It is this overwhelming desire to seek the truth and unmask the false that leads him to be so outspoken on so many issues. Neither the Church nor the Government, the African nor the European has, escaped his caustic tongue. He is completely undiscriminating in his attacks on what he believes to be false, whether it originates from Europeans or Africans. But his complete sincerity enables him to keep the respect and friendship of most of those whom he attacks most strongly. It is not without reason that he was given the affectionate name of the Copperbelt's "fighting parson". He is always

PROFILE OF COLIN MORRIS on the offensive, and nothing gives more pleasure to the headline-makers of the North's newspapers than to splash across their pages the report of a Morris skirmish: At the time of the rockbreakers' strike, they blared "PARSON BLASTS UNION AND MINE BOSSES" When Africans threatened to boycott the Northern Rhodesian elections "POLITICAL PARSON SLATES AFRICANSDON'T BOYCOTT THE ELECTIONS And when on a flying trip to England he addressed a meeting with Barbara Castle, two days later the Northern News screamed "GREENFIELD ACCUSES CASTLE AND MORRIS OF WICKED ATTACK ON EUROPEANS" Mr. Julian Greenfield being the Federal Minister of Law. What, in fact, has Colin Morris said about the social, political, and religious situation on the Copperbelt? What truth is there in his statements? Let him speak for himself. Of the people who use the Church only as a social convenience he said:"People who make the golf club or the bar their church should be married by the professional or baptised by the barman." He spoke of "the thin veneer of twice a year Christianity that cloaks the fundamental paganism of our community" and "the moral bankruptcy and chromium plated futility of Copperbelt life." When asked what he meant by revival of religion, characteristically he said "revival would mean that people would not be afraid to speak about serious matters in a serious way, instead of the cocktail lubricated futility that passes for conversation on the Copperbelt." His criticism of Copperbelt life was never purely destructive. When the town was shocked by a fatal

BLACK GOVERNMENT? motor accident he asked for a wrecked car to be dragged in front of the Church and floodlit at night. On that Sunday evening a congregation of 400 heard him speak of the lunatic motorists who used Chingola's roads as a race track, and said: "If you love these cowboys you should run them in. Rather be a prosecution witness in a magistrate's court than an eye witness in a Coroner's Court." Speaking at Mufulira Round Table in May, 1958, he said, "Unless the Europeans have the moral courage to take far-reaching steps to establish racial justice in Northern Rhodesia, they are priming a time bomb which will explode in their children's faces. It is possible that we may be able to maintain the present balance of power racially for our life time, but only at the expense of dropping a holocaust of hatred and bitterness into our children's lives." Speaking at an African cultural group in Nchanga Mine, he said: "African gangsterism is hardly likely to convince Europeans of the wisdom of handing over a share of political control to them. Now is the time for Congress leaders to abandon the roll of bandit chiefs and emerge as statesmen. The only African which even the most liberal European would countenance as a ruler would be a man of vision and integrity, not a reformed thug." Under the headline " THE COLOUR BAR PROVIDES A WARM COCOON FOR FAILURE" he wrote:"One of the more lunatic effects of the colour bar is that it enables some Africans to award themselves, metaphorically at least, the degree of B.Sc. (never attempted). Many talented Africans hurl themselves against the Colour Bar in a futile effort to gain recognition. Many others however, find, in racial discrimination a cast iron excuse for

PROFILE OF COLIN MORRIS attempting nothing, achieving nothing, and arriving nowhere." Colin Morris has repeatedly given warning against the dangers of Communism in Africa. In December, 1957, speaking at a conference of Churchmen he said: "If you want mass literacy, mass industrialisation and a re-distribution of land all done by strong arm methods, Communism has one answer which might appeal to voteless people. If the Capitalist solution does not succeed in Northern Rhodesia the alternative largely involves the raising of the Red Flag. If the Government's present franchise proposals are implemented Africans might become perfect dictator material through sheer disillusionment." In reply to Mr. Malcolmson, a Northern Rhodesia Member of Legco, he said: "The line of reasoning that introducing wider suffrage would throw the doors wide open to Communism is a strange one. Surely the best way to give someone a personal stake in is to give him a voice in government through the vote. You cannot stamp out Communism by repression. Communists can only be combated by removing the social and political injustices upon which it breeds. In this territory that means finding a formula which will give Africans a real, rather than a token voice in Government and raising the standard of living of backward people." What has Colin Morris said about the relation of the Church to Politics? In January, 1958, under the headline "CHURCH MUST ACT POLITICALLY OR DECAY" he was reported as saying: "Unless the Christian Church in the Federation begins to take an active part in politics and refuses to accept un-Christian legislation then the days of the Church are numbered. If the Government chooses to disregard its Christian duty to all

BLACK GOVERNMENT? races then the Church must do everything it can to hurry that Government out and hurry another that will base its policies on Christian , into power. Perhaps in the future the badge of a good missionary may not be the Order of the , but the Order of Deportation. The Church is losing its hold on the African because while it is concerned with his soul, his body and his rights belong to the United Federal Party". As he no doubt expected, Colin Morris got immediate and violent reaction to his statements on political issues. The Federal Minister of Law and Education, Mr. Julian Greenfield, addressing 700 people gathered at Rhodes' statue in the centre of Salisbury to commemorate the death of Rhodesia's founder on 26th March, 1902, said: "Our Federation is based on partnership. We are constantly being challenged to define partnership and our critics are always cavilling at the word. I don't believe in attempting to define a mighty concept, but the essence of partnership is a sharinga sharing of land and of the benefits of the country, and, increasingly, of all the responsibilities and duties that go with it. Although things have changed since the end of the last century, like Rhodes we have our detractors today. I am speaking of Mrs. Barbara Castle and a certain reverend gentleman called Morris. Together, they have indulged in a wicked attack on the European in this country. Mr. Morris talks of partnership as the biggest confidence trick in political history. We will not allow the calumnies of these people to deflect us from our task of building up a harmonious nation out of diverse elements. Nothing will stop our advance to free independent nationhood. We are here to see that the ideals of our founder should be revived."

PROFILE OF COLIN MORRIS Colin Morris replied: "When I spoke at Blackburn on the same platform as Mrs. Castle my attack was not on the Europeans in the Federation but on some of the European politicians there. I reiterate what I said-that although the ordinary man in the street may be excused for failing to see that the present policy is bound to lead to a violent collision sooner or later, our politicians have no excuse for failing to recognise this." Preaching to a large African congregation at Bancroft in May, 1958, he talked of Christian responsibility and the biblical meaning of "guardianship". Amongst other things, he said: "although the European is the Africans' guardian at present, the time is not far distant when the African will be the Europeans' guardian." The Editor of the Northern News, in a leader headed "Parson takes the wrong turning" accused Colin Morris of being "irresponsible and mischievous." To which he replied: "If it is mischievous and irresponsible to tell Africans they must not remain indefinitely the passive recipients of help from Europeans, then I plead guilty. Because of their numerical superiority this is bound to imply the Africans' guardianship of the Europeans, for by their attitude and demeanour they will determine the climate of race relations even though the reins of government are still in European hands." An African reaction to the Bancroft sermon came from U.J.D. who in a letter to the Northern News said: "For the first time in a decade I attended a church service and had an unforgettable experience. I must confess that I was deeply moved by his approach to the problem of race relations, over which so much controversy has been created. If all men in Rhodesia followed his example, I feel

BLACK GOVERNMENT? the race relations committee now set up throughout our country would not be needed. In this sermon I learned the proper way to fight for my rights, namely with love, tolerance, patience and undertanding, the same weapons the Lord used at Calvary. I am an embittered, frustrated and insulted third class citizen in my own country. I felt I was not fit to live because my sins would never leave me but would soar higher, and higher, day by day, because each new day taught me new methods of approach to the problem of race. But now I know I will fight differently. I will set myself a standard by which I will help save this beautiful and fabulous land of ours from the calamity that lies ahead. Oh for more fighting parsons!" A year later the Editor of the Northern News sprang to his defence. He wrote: "It is accepted without question that a business man, a builder, a car salesman, or a clerk, may publicly discuss the country's problems. Why, therefore, an outcry when a clergyman does so? In recent weeks the Rev. Colin Morris has been subjected in our correspondence columns to a series of illogical and bitter attacks, which are no credit to a country where there is a right of free speech. If Mr. Morris were attacked simply on the basis of what he said, there would be no objection, but criticism that he is 'poking his nose' into matters with which he has no concern is to single out his calling as the only one to which the right of free speech should be denied. We share a general feeling that it is a pity churches today do not sufficiently give a lead to Christian thought in public affairs. We do not suggest that they should align themselves with political parties, but especially in a multi-racial society

Rev. Colin Morris in his pulpit.

PROFILE OF COLIN MORuS there is right and wrong, good and evil, and surely no one has a greater responsibility or right to point out one from the other than a Minister." Intermingled with all the abuse that was poured out against him for his stand on political issues, there came a few words of encouragement. A Methodist from Umtali in a letter to the Central African Examiner said: "Sir - I was surprised that the editor of the Central African Examiner thinks that Methodists are "aghast" at the statements of the Rev. Colin Morris. The ideas which you quoted from Mr. Morris in your issue of 6th June seem reasonable enough, and honest enough, and are certainly familiar to those who have worked within the Methodist Church for years. Mr. Morris is well within the bounds of the traditions of Methodists whose founder, John Wesley, said that the only gospel is the Social Gospel, and who himself contributed much to labour movements and political reforms in England. Those of us who have worked with the Methodist Church in other countries have been "aghast" at the lack of social conscience on the part of the Church-people generally in Rhodesia, and we are gratified to see the leaven working." Although his preaching emptied some of the pews his earlier preaching had filled, his own people and Church Council have given him great support. A glance at the correspondence columns of the Central Africa press reveals the ding-dong battle which has raged about him: "Sir," wrote MOST CONCERNED "It is shocking to read once more that the Rev. Colin Morris has taken the house of God to serve his own selfish political ambitions. Many people must wonder why his superiors are permitting such a political egotist to make use of the pulpit to vent his doctrine."

BLACK GOVERNMENT ? To which one of his supporters replied: "Sir-May I inform "Most Concerned" and all others like him who criticise the Rev. Colin Morris from positions of absolute ignorance of any first hand knowledge, that Mr. Morris continues to use the pulpit of the Chingola Free Church for the following reasons: 1. He has the full support of his church council, who stand four square behind him in his gallant efforts to educate the thinking public of this territory to an understanding of the Christian approach to our present almost insurmountable difficulties. 2. More and more his hearers are beginning to recognise the authentic note of the Gospel in his powerful preaching, of which his sermon at the Service of Intercession for Racial Peace was an outstanding example. 3. He has never at any time used his pulpit for the expression of political opinions. If what he says has political repercussions then this only serves to underline the power of his statement of the Christian case. Since I am one of the many Christians whose attitude to members of other races has been radically changed as a result of Mr. Morris's preaching and teaching, I sign myself in humility CONVERT". Colin Morris is undoubtedly the most controversial figure in Northern Rhodesia today. It is impossible to remain neutral in his presence and everyone is forced to take sides for or against what he says. It is curious however that the more enemies he makes, the more friends he has. It frequently happens that in a controversy with Colin Morris people stand by their arguments, but they nearly always change their attitude towards 'him. A classic example of this has been the controversy over the . When Colin Morris felt he must reject the boycott called by U.N.I.P. he PROFILE OF COLIN MORRIS set out on a tour of all the African congregations of the U.C.C.A.R. on the Copperbelt to lay before them what he considered to be the advantages of giving evidence to the Commission. He was attacked in the African press by Mr. , an independent member of the Federal Parliament who said: "Chingola's fighting parson should mind his own business, that of religion and advising the copper mine companies on labour relations, and not involve himself in affairs that have something to do with the African's future well being. We are not going to be influenced by missionaries on our struggle for freedom. How does Mr. Morris expect us to co-operate with Europeans who are not interested in us. Mr. Morris is making misleading and destructive criticisms." Yet a few weeks later Morris was entertaining Kenneth Kaunda and other U.N.I.P. leaders in his home, and debating with them aspects of the policy of African nationalism. So quickly does the pendulum swing in Central Africa. Central to Morris' creed is a belief that the Gospel is a 'Gospel of Controversy'. He is fond of quoting the words of Jesus "I came not to bring peace but a sword". He has developed this theme at length in a recent article. He wrote: "In my view the controversialist is the last bastion against the besetting disease of our age - blind, unthinking conformism. The symptoms of this paralytic disease are everywhere. In politics the demand for rigid adherence to the party line. In religion - the unthinking acceptance of a creed or constitution. In the trade union - the ruthless crushing of minority opinion. In the community generally - the persecution of those who will not bow the knee to Mrs. Grundy. History undoubtedly vindicates the controversialist. Take the annals of the church for instance.

BLACK GOVERNMENT? Every period when the church has flourished has been an age of controversy. The early church argued over the nature and person of Jesus Christ. The Reformation Church was split on the issue of Authority. The Victorian Church debated with great heat the relations between Biblical truth and modern knowledge. But during each of these periods the Church was gloriously alive. For it is not controversy that is the greatest threat. It is blind unthinking orthodoxy. If he is right, the controversialist is a man whose day has not yet dawned. Even if he is wrong, he discharges the vitally important task of forcing society to defend and rethink the ideas that it has often swallowed undigested. And therefore even when he is in error he brings the truth to light. It is not only the virility of a society that can be measured by the number of controversialists in it; it is also the degree of personal freedom. Most of the controversialists in modern Russia will be found in the slave camps of Siberia. In Hitler's Germany, they invariably ended up in Belsen and Buchenwald. The reason is simple. The controversialist does not make good dictator-fodder. He will not swallow a dogma because the state or the party decrees that he must. Until a doctrine or an idea has passed through the filter of his mind and conscience, he will not bow down and worship. Nor will anything short of the firing squad or the gas chamber silence him. Far from castigating the controversialist we ought to award him a State pension to enable him to carry on his work. For he is our best defence against the power of mass propaganda, of mob mentality, of the blind conformism that has again and again delivered a society up into the hands of a dictator or the god of war.

PROFILE OF COLIN MORRIS I do recognise that the besetting sin of the controversialist is spiritual pride; that his urge to be different can become paranoic. Nevertheless, I am grateful to be counted among the company of those who are slaves neither to public opinion nor any party - a company who are sustained by the hope that sometime their day may dawn. And even if it doesn't, they still have the satisfaction of knowing that their ideas, right or wrong, are their own." From reading Northern Rhodesia's newspapers one might be forgiven for thinking that Colin Morris spends his life making pronouncements on political issues, but those who work with him know that this is but one side of a very active ministry. Nor does the Church itself escape his knife-edged tongue. In ecclesiastical circles, he is respected but not greatly loved by many of his clerical colleagues. Some senior ministers speak of him openly as a highly dangerous man. Nor can it be claimed that Morris goes out of his way to win their confidence. At a recent World Council of Churches Conference, he horrified distinguished Church leaders by declaring at a public meeting "There are too many women - of both sexes - running the modern Church." He is constantly enraging the Church's administrators with his scathing references to "ecclesiastical bureaucracy" and " death by a thousand committees". "The Church" he has commented "has solved the problem of perpetual motion. It consists of an endless multiplicity of ecclesiastical committees, which exist by devouring each other's Minutes." When challenged on his negative attitude to administrative matters (he is an invariable absentee at Synods and committees) he snapped: "When modern scholarship uncovers the fact that there was originally a Balance Sheet attached to the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, then I'll admit that this sort of thing is a worthwhile expenditure of

BLACK GOVERNMENT ? time, but not until." As with many of his utterances there is sufficient truth in statements like these for them to be hurting, and enough exaggeration to enrage hard-pressed administrators who want to help him all they can, and whose very efficiency allows him the leisure to be a prophet. He himself admits that he is not a good colleague or easy to work with. He does not seek willingly the company of his brother-ministers, and appears acutely uncomfortable amongst them. Supremely confident in the rightness of the policy he has adopted, he can be less than charitable about the less spectacular work which others are doing. This lack of confidence in his brethren, it could be argued, stems from his bitter experiences. Few of them sprang to his defence at the time when European opinion was united against him. That period of his Central Africa ministry has left its scars on him, and one of them is this lack of trust in his fellow ministers. In 1958 he launched a campaign to rouse Christians on the issue of Race by forming a movement which he called "Christian Conscience". It called on Christians: 1. To eradicate in ourselves all vestiges of racial prejudice, and to try by personal example and the influencing of public opinion to reconcile hostile racial groups. 2. To offer daily intercessory prayer for the ending of racial tension and the establishment of just and peaceful societies in the continent of Africa. 3. To study separately or in groups the Bible, with a view to discovering the principles which ought to guide our conduct as citizens, and enable us to learn the will of God for our society. 4. To take every opportunity of coming to know and understand members of other races in fellowship. 5. To accept the full responsibility of citizenship working through political parties and movements

PROFILE OF COLIN MORRIS of our choice to transform Christian principles. into practical policies. Many people see this as the most worthwhile thing he has done, and believe that this is a practical way of uniting the various Churches in a wholly Christian programme for solving the problems of Central Africa. He has been equally active in the industrial field.. For three years he has been lecturing at various of the copper mines on aspects of industrial and human relations. At the local mine, Nchanga, he has given all grades of Management a comprehensive course in Industrial Relations, Human Relations, and the Theory of Management. His lecture notes have been collected in three large volumes which the Mine has published privately. Colin Morris, except when he is dealing with the. ignorant, the foolish or those in real distress, is always in a hurry. It is never possible to sit and have a quiet chat, for he paces restlessly up and down the room, his telephone rings incessantly and half the time, even though he is in the room with you, you know his mind is racing off down some suddenly opened corridor of thought. You almost feel it is a physical effort for him to wrench his mind back to the subject of your conversation. He reads voraciously -always source books, never pamphlets. His bedside books are the two massive volumes of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, for he loves words, not for their own sake but because he finds enjoyment and deep satisfaction in finding exactly the right word to suit his thought. It is significant that the Central African Examiner has called him "the finest natural orator in the Federation". He is in constant demand to address meetings all over Central Africa. But here again, more than half the organisations which invite him to address them are unconnected with the Church. Many parsons and Church leaders baulk at letting him loose on their congregations for fear of the repercussions. Their fears are needless since he

BLACK GOvERNMENT? makes it a rule never, unless invited to do so, to deal with highly controversial subjects from other ministers' pulpits. Hence congregations who do not not know him and who go to hear him prepared to be outraged by what he says suffer almost from a sense of anti-climax when they are treated to a sermon on a central Christian doctrine. His very love for words can be a drawback. Some of his cleverest and most cutting aphorisms are directed not by personal animus against their target, but rather as an exercise in word-spinning. One cannot however, expect the unfortunate victim to know this, and personal relationships have sometimes suffered as a result. He is not a man who at first gives you a sense of peace in his presence, for always his heart and mind are on fire - all he seems to say to you is "Come along with me, we'll find truth together and on the other side of truth is peace - it's God's peace not mine we are looking for." It is too early yet to assess the significance of Colin Morris' contribution in Central Africa. An interim verdict is that of Mr. Frank Barton, a well-known journalist, who when editor of the African Times wrote: "Colin Morris realises better than any of the scores of thousands of Blacks, and Whites and Browns who listen to him with varying degrees of hope and horror that he may be living on borrowed time in Africa, that as the pace quickens in the struggle for power and Dominion status it may prove too big an embarassment to have him around. One thing is certain. Until the day he is removed from either the country or the Church, Colin Morris with his Bible in one hand and waving the other clenched - in the face of hypocrisy - will go on fighting for the 8,000,000 underdogs of the Federation."

CHAPTER THREE "We want a Colour-Blind Society" KAUNDA: I am a "nationalist" living in a society that you White men call multi-racial, but it rejects me and my claims. I am regarded in my own country as a second class citizen. I ask you to look at this society and I ask all Europeans to look at it for once through the eyes of an African. WE LIVE IN WATER-TIGHT COMPARTMENTS What do I mean by this? We find ourselves divided into four distinct residential areas: European, Asian, Eurafrican and African. You travel along an avenue shaded by trees; on either side are the beautiful European houses with well-kept gardens where the garden "boys" work. Under your feet is a good tarmac road. Suddenly the tar comes to an end, you are treading on a dusty red road. You have arrived in the African residential area. Now you see row upon row of huts and each is like the one next door. When the sun shines the hut becomes an oven, when the rain falls it becomes a well in the middle of a swamp. When it is cold the hut is like

BLACK GOVERNMENT? a refrigerator. How can a man and woman bring up their children decently in such surroundings? Our daughters learn domestic science in the schools, but how difficult it is to put their theory into practice when they go home in the evening, because their living conditions belie all that they have been taught. Where is the equality here? MORRIS: I agree with you entirely that the disparity between African and European standards of living is shocking, and there can be no doubt that one of our most urgent tasks is to reduce that gap as rapidly as possible. In fairness, I think we should point out that both you and I are better off living in industrial towns in Northern Rhodesia than we should be in the communities from which we have originated. In that sense considerable progress has been made. However, it is true that the capital sums spent upon amenities for our two communities are out of any proportion to their comparative size. The word 'equality' is a dangerous one, I think. Many Africans I have talked with seem confident that the morning after the new regime takes over, they will be moving into European mansions and careering round in big cars. I think they will be disillusioned, for even a black government would have to bow to the iron law of economics. The word I would prefer to express what we are both aiming at is 'justice'. To me, justice implies a policy which will ensure a 'floor' beneath which no member of society need sink, but leaves the height of the 'ceiling' to individual initiative and achievement. I am sure the less thoughtful imagine that eqaulity means uniformity, which seems to me neither possible nor desirable. Even in the 'classless society' of Soviet Russia no way has been found of ironing out differences in living standards. What is important is that these living standards should, after

"WE WANT A COLOUR-BLIND SOCIETY" a necessary floor has been established, reflect achievement and contribution, and not be arbitrarily decided on the totally irrelevant grounds of colour. It ought not to be forgotten that to a certain extent European living standards here are symbols of achievement and contribution to society. They will have to mean the same thing to Africans if we are to have a thriving economy. Much nationalist propaganda seems to run along the line - Europeans have these good things because the Government is white, therefore when the Government is black we shall have them instead. Obviously you are going to see to it when you have the greater share of political power that there is a more equable distribution of wealth, but unless the distribution of wealth is related to contribution the results will be catastrophic. What is indefensible at present is that whatever the contribution the African makes, his reward is artificially limited by arbitrary racial distinctions. But no doubt you will be taking this up later. In practical terms, justice in this matter of standards of living means two things. Firstly, that a greater slice of the national income be devoted to increasing the amenities of African communities, especially in the rural areas. This is not so urgent a problem in the Copperbelt because as you know, the mining companies have set such a high standard for their African townships that municipalities have been forced willynilly to follow their lead. Secondly, although there is in strict law no segregation of communities by race, there are a number of artificial barriers raised, or pressures applied, to prevent non-Europeans from building homes or buying property for living purposes in European areas. The Government ought to be much more ruthless in cracking down on such examples of obstructionism, so that the wealthy non-European can live wherever his means allow him. Then our communities would divide along class instead of racial lines.

BLACK GOVERNMENT? KAUNDA: Let's look then at education. WE SEND OUR CHILDREN TO SEPARATE SCHOOLS Schools, both high and low, with the exception of the Salisbury University are run purely on racial lines. Apart from one or two exceptions, European schools are better equipped than Asian schools, and Asian schools than African schools. Look at the Secondary schools in Lusaka. The Rennie school which caters for the European children of the Central Province was built at a cost of two million pounds while Munali Secondary school nearby, which caters for African boys from the whole of Northern Rhodesia was built for less than a quarter of that cost. There is free elementary education for all European children up to any level that their abilities will take them, whereas there are thousands of African children who will never see the inside of a school, or if they do, only a fraction will be given the opportunity for higher education. I recently visited one of our schools in . Of 160 children who pass Standard IV (sixth year of school) only 40 will be allowed to move up to Standard V. What future have the rest? Over the whole territory only 2% of the children who start school are able to get a secondary education. I am told that African education can only advance as quickly as the economy of the country will permit, but why then in 1957/58 did the Federation vote from revenue £41 2 million on African education when it spent £51 million on European education? You would think from those figures that there are more European children to educate than African children, but what are the population figures? 300,000 Europeans, 71 million Africans. One European child to 25 African children. A just society? The United States of America has said that the concept of "separate but equal" is nonsense, so they are integrating all their schools. The white man who talks about "Partnership" says there must be equal

"WE WANT A COLOUR-BLIND SOCIETY" opportunity for men of all races. Why then, do they not educate all the children together? MORRIS: I'm afraid I don't know as much about the education system of the Southern U.S. as I ought to, but to chance my arm I Would say that there are two conditions applying there which do not apply here. In the first place, both Negro and White children have been taught through a common language medium, English, whereas in Northern Rhodesia, European children are taught in English, and African children in a vernacular. In the second place, I imagine that the educational standards of Negro and White children of given age-groups are more nearly equal than they are here, where as you know African children, through no fault of their own, normally lag far behind their European counterparts. Now here there are two practical difficulties in the way of an integrated educational system, whose seriousness it would be foolish to ignore. How can we graft together the two present systems without holding back European children, and without using English as the medium of instruction in African schools from the beginning - which would demand more exacting standards from an already over-loaded African teaching service? These are questions for the education specialist and not for a working parson, and I don't pretend to have the answers. But I would stress that they are practical difficulties which can be overcome; they are not insuperable differences of principle. I agree entirely that it is nonsense to talk about a multi-racial society until our children grow up together and learn to solve their problems side by side. It is for this reason that I think the division of responsibility for education - European, a Federal matter; African, a Territorial matter - inhibits the growth of a truly multi- racial society. Because there are two unrelated policies for education our society is divided racially

BLACK GOVERNMENT? from its very roots. The melancholy truth about the example you quote of the difference in capital cost between a European and African secondary school is that even if there were some saving to be made on the budget for European education none of it would be available to help put more African children through school. Is it any wonder that Africans talk about being 'second class citizens', when they know perfectly well that they have to make do with a second class education system? (And this is no reflection on the Territorial African Education Service which is doing, within the limits imposed upon it, a magnificent job). Education policy is central to the life of any society because it is instrumental in deciding the shape of the future. Until one Government, answerable to one electorate, implements one policy for education for all the children of whom it is , and works to one budget which is apportioned according to the greatest need we cannot hope to create a society in which race is of no significance. How the architects of Federation imagined that it would be possible to build a nonracial society by dividing education policy along purely racial lines is beyond me! KAUNDA: Living conditions and education are just two examples of the general situation. EVERY PART OF OUR "MULTI-RACIAL" SOCIETY IS CONDITIONED BY COLOUR When we are sick we are taken to separate hospitals in separate ambulances. When we sleep on a journey we must go to separate hotels. When we eat we must eat in separate cafes; when we want to enjoy ourselves we must go to separate cinemas. When travelling overseas in Britain, I was treated with courtesy everywhere. I was received in homes of the highest and the lowest, and suffered no social embarrassment. Back at home I remember going into

"WE WANT A COLOUR-BLIND SOCIETY" a cafe in Kitwe. It was in April 1957. I went to the counter and asked for sandwiches, but was told "boys are not served here". I tried to reason with the assistant, that all I wanted was service, but without success. The next thing I knew I was being thrown outside by fellow customers and "a free for all" followed. And this, in the land of my birth! This kind of incident is repeated countless times every day and is a source of explosive bitterness in the hearts of my people. There is only one hotel in Northern Rhodesia where I can find accommodation. In the capital city of Lusaka, only one cinema, the Palace, admits Africans. If this discrimination was on the grounds of education, many Africans in spite of handicaps could remedy this situation by taking to night studies as many of them are doing today. If this was an economic bar we could overcome it as some of our people are fast doing. One could even change one's religion. But God has made me black, there is nothing I can do about it. This does not mean that I am not proud of my colour, but it is something to show that I am being punished for a sin, if sin it is, that I never committed. If Europeans retort by saying this is a culture bar and not a colour bar, and that when Africans have reached sufficient cultural level they would be admitted to the communities' amenities, I would merely point out that Sir Francis Ibiam was excluded from a Chingola cafe only recently. He is a Nigerian Knight and Privy Councillor. What is wrong with his culture? To quote an American authority: "Social Segregation is a dominant factor in every aspect of the life of an African. It limits his physical movements and economic opportunities, and adversely affects his personality and social developments. It is an ostracism symbolising inferiority, and colours his thoughts and actions at almost every moment" MYRDEL, An American Dilemma. That's certainly what we feel.

BLACK GOVERNMENT? MORRIS: I don't think I need re-iterate my views on the iniquity of the colour bar. As you know, I have been expressing them at length for the past five years. But possibly I ought to mention that unspoken fear which haunts many Europeans when the propriety of racial mixing is discussed. They fear, frankly, that should the colour bar be relaxed in any one direction, it must inevitably come crashing in every other direction, leading inexorably to a totally integrated society. And some of them who could accept an African neighbour dread the possibility of an African son-in-law. Europeans also fear that the relaxation of the colour bar will lead to the destruction of European culture, and mean an end to reasonable privacy - the right of any people to mix with their own kind. The key to this problem is to be found again, I think, in the word 'justice'. All members of our society, whatever their racial origins are entitled to social justice as citizens, but they have also certain reserved rights as individuals. Because this is a multi-racial society, any of its members must be given right of access to all those of its institutions which exist to serve its citizens. This means not only post offices and banks etc., but also cafes and hotels, which in this vast country, with its widely separated towns, are essential amenities of life. Any place to which we have right of entry as citizens must grant that right also to our African fellow citizens. At the same time, there are certain relationships which we establish as individuals, such as the family, clubs, etc., and there is nothing unjust in our desiring to handpick those with whom we establish these relationships. A legitimate barrier is erected by community of interest and good taste: a barrier which I have noted Africans are as anxious to preserve as Europeans. Personally, I think we ought to go further as Christians and recognise that we are immeasurably impoverished if we avoid the encounter with members

Northern News Photograph. Notice outside the Chingola Free Church, of which Rev. Colin Morris is the Minister.

"WE WANT A COLOUR-BLIND SOCIETY" of other races, who have all the riches of their traditions to offer us. However, even if Europeans as individuals reserve the right to preserve themselves from this meeting, they have certainly no right to erect barriers against their fellow-citizens in public places. I don't know whether you would agree with this line of reasoning but if so, the real problem is to find the best way of smashing the colour bar in public places. The more intimate barriers will probably be eroded away by time. Cafe and hotel proprietors insist that to open their doors to non-European customers is to commit economic suicide through the loss of European customers. Frankly, I do not find this argument convincing. In the first place, they have still to learn the lesson which general store-keepers learned long ago that whether the money is offered in a white or black hand it is still legal tender. Secondly, the die-hard racists who withdraw their custom from a multi-racial hotel or cafe are not only an anachronism, but a dwindling one. On the other hand, there are a growing number of Europeans like myself who refuse to patronise places which practise discrimination. So it might mean economic loss in the short run to open the doors of cafes etc. to Africans, but it will certainly mean economic suicide in the long run not to. I can see no other solution than legislation to this problem. This is the only way of ensuring that forwardlooking proprietors who are prepared to become multiracial voluntarily are not penalised in favour of those who are not. But that legislation will have to be sternly enforced. As you know, it is at present a condition of holding a hotel licence that bona fide travellers of decent appearance regardless of race must be served and accommodated. Yet African travellers are turned away from hotels every day, without the proprietors incurring any penalty. This blatant disregard of the law brings it into disrepute and leads disillusioned Africans to believe that racial prejudice is above law.

BLACK GOVERNMENT? I am glad you mentioned the Ibiam incident. This took place in my own community, and I bow my head in shame at the recollection of it. The Federal Prime Minister certainly had the grace to apologise officially to Sir Francis Ibiam, just as he was forced to apologise recently to the Indian Government over the treatment of a prominent Indian citizen in Bulawayo. These apologies indicate, I think, genuine goodwill as well as diplomatic courtesy, but they cloud the real issue. When the Government reaches the point where it is led to apologise for the treatment meted out not to a distinguished visitor but to a humble African citizen of the Federation, then Africans will believe that the Government is sincere in its protestations against the colour bar. But to express regret at the operation of the colour bar against visiting dignatories and yet turn a blind eye to the indignities suffered daily by thousands of respectable African citizens suggests to to me a lack of moral fibre at the heart of the Government's policies. KAUNDA: The same colour-madness can be seen in the economic sphere. THERE IS ONE WAGE FOR BLACK AND ONE FOR WHITE On the Rhodesia Railways when a European sweeps the compartment it is a skilled job with a high salary, when the job is given to an African it becomes unskilled with a low wage. In the Federal Post Office a European girl selling postage stamps is doing an advanced job while the African selling stamps at the next counter is unskilled. In the Federal telephone service the African operator gets less than one sixth of the wage of the European, but they work the same hours and handle the same volume of calls as they come. In the printing shops in Lusaka an African who operates a linotype machine gets £35 per month, while

"'WE WANT A COLOUR-BLIND SoCIETy" the European doing the same job gets £110 per month. The entire wage structure of the African is so low that many families in the towns are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. The African Mail of February 23rd, 1960 quotes from the Bettison report as follows: "'The most important investigation ever made into the way Africans live in Northern Rhodesia towns has just been published. It gives proof, among other things, that wages are too low to allow most Lusaka families to 'maintain a state of health and decency'." Its findings reveal that 80%0 of African homes where there are children have conditions below the poverty datum line (P.D.L.). This is the level of rock bottom needs, worked out scientifically. For example, the P.D.L. for a man with three children is £14 11 0 a month. But the average income for such an African family in Lusaka is revealed by the survey to be £8 8 10. The survey was made in 1957 and 1958, but there has been no big change in African wage levels since then and C.O.L. index June 1957 was 203; January, 1960, 215. Although Lusaka was the place investigated, conditions are little different in other towns. In some places they are worse and only the Copperbelt would be better. Dr. Bettison says: "The poverty datum line is calculated on a basis of minimum human needs at approximately 3,000 calories per working adult male per day, a minimum of clothing at a standard to ensure decency, a minimum allowance for fuel and light, cleaning materials and taxation." Only single men working in towns are mainly above the poverty level. The report shows that their average wage is £5 9 8, whereas their poverty datum line is £4 7 5. Items going to make up this total are £2 18 8 for food, 10/1 for clothing and 5/6 for fuel and light. The average monthly wage for a couple with one child under 15 is £7 9 10. They are more than £3 below the poverty datum line for their group, which is £10 14 9.

BLACK GOVERNMENT? The experts reckon that a husband and wife with two children under fifteen years can live on £12 12 0. This allows less than £10 a month for food; less than 30/for clothing; 25/- for fuel and light, and 7/6 for cleaning materials such as soap. But few get a total of £12 16 10. The average shown for this group is £8 3 8 a month. Dr Bettison says: "The general average wage of just over £7 a month is in itself inadequate to supply the minimum needs at poverty datum line standards of a couple with one child. He goes on to point out that the number of children in the locations is increasing, and states: "Some 80 % of households with children do not currently receive a wage sufficient to supply their minimum needs excluding any rent payments". He stresses that any plan to make African tenants pay their own rents would have bad effects on health especially of the children - unless wages were increased to cover the rents. This whole position is iniquitous because there is no qualitative difference between African and European. Africans, given suitable training can do any job at present done by Europeans. MORRIS: About the appalling amount of poverty amongst the African population of the towns, I can say littleexcept admit personal guilt. What Dr. Bettison has demonstrated statistically, Europeans have known in their heart of hearts for a long time. Even as we have paid our African house servants and gardeners we have commented that we do not know how they can live on such paltry sums, but few of us have got around to doing anything radical about it. The sorry truth is that the gracious life of the European in Central Africa is subsidised at the expense of the health and economic welfare of the African population. It is the endless supply of cheap labour

"WE WANT A COLOUR-BLIND SOCIETY" available to do the menial tasks in our homes and communities which assures our luxury existence, and makes it worth our while to live here rather than in Britain or in South Africa. To face up squarely to the moral implications of this situation would be to strike at the very roots of our stately life, and this we dare not do. Yet the signs of the times are blazoned across the face of the continent. In our saner moments we know that the European can only preserve his foothold in Africa provided he abandons both the privileges he can no longer morally justify, and the racial arrogance which goes with them. We always seem to reach the point in Colonial Africa where we are forced to make, with a bad grace, the concessions after the trouble is over, that we ought to have made with a good grace before the trouble began. We have talked a lot about the African Problem. It would be more correct to describe it as the European Problem. Whether the life of the European in Africa will be worthwhile in the future depends upon his ability to abandon old attitudes, many of which you have described, and adjust himself to an entirely new tempo of life - a life in which he ceases to be a colonial potentate and becomes a fellow- citizen of his African brethren. In all this, I would plead for your understanding, and the understanding of your people. Such a radical form of adjustment is agonizing for Europeans, many of whom have carved for themselves niches here by great sacrifice and hardship, and have, incidentally, set many of your people on the road to nationhood. The basic question is- can they make this leap of understanding? For make no mistake about it, if they abandon their life here and return whence they came theirs' will not be the only sacrifice. Your people will also be immeasurably impoverished. Now before we leave this phase of the discussion, there is one point on which I would like your views. We

BLACK GOVERNMENT ? have both used the term 'multi-racial society' several tines in our discussion. It appears again and again in th- pronouncements of our politicians. The goal of all our endeavours apparently is to create a "multira-ial" society. But everyone seems to go to great lengths to avoid defining the term too closely. Lord Lugard has probably expressed as well as anyone I know wiat most Europeans mean by a multi-racial society. In 1923 he wrote: "Here is the true conception of the inter-relation of colour: complete conformity in ideals, absolute equality in the paths of knowledge and culture, equal opportunity for those who strive, equal administration for those who achieve; in matters social and racial a separate path, each pursuing his own inherited traditions, preserving his own race pride; equality in things spiritual, agreed difference in the physical and material."* (INOTE: *Quoted in Warren: Partnership p. 111. S.C.M. Press 1956) Now the question in my mind is - is this possible? Is there, in fact, such a thing as a 'multi-racial' society in the sense of a half-way house between strict and total integration, including a certain degree of inter-marriage? Most people in Central Africa claim that they reject outright apartheid as a solution to our problems. Have they then, the courage to face up to the other alternative? I can't help feeling that most European politicians are pulling a fast one on the electorate here. They talk happily about striving for a nulti-racial society, but in their reluctance to define the term they indicate to me an unwillingness to face up to naked reality; to admit that apartheid or total integration are the two alternatives. Admittedly, they are on the horns of a dilemma since they know that the increasingly articulate African population will noL accept the one, nor will the European electorate tolerate the other.

"WE WANT A COLOUR-BLIND SoCIETY" 55 There is no doubt that there is a streak of realism about the Nationalist Party's thinking in the Union of South Africa. They have looked at the alternatives, decided that total integration is too dreadful to contemplate, and so have set about ruthlessly applying strict apartheid. Obviously, I do not accept their position or policy, but I must confess there is in it a kind of logic which is wholly lacking in the ambiguities of expression and confusion of thinking of the major European political party of the Federation. I would like very much to hear the views of a leading African politician on this thorny question of total integration. KAUNDA: This is obviously a very difficult question. It is one of the questions facing humanity to which we have no immediate answer and yet which it is essential to remind ourselves does exist and it is at least in our minds. It is, I believe, invaluable for us to learn something from the experience of two older countries - the U.S.A. and the Union of South Africa. In the Union of South Africa we find strict apartheid, while in the U.S.A. we find legislation is provided to help bring about social integration. With the coming of the jet age people the world over are getting more and more in touch with each other, and are therefore exchanging ideas and learning more and more from each other. They are also overcoming their natural abhorrence of other races, as a result of these contacts. Thus we must face the fact that should there be complete racial equality in Central Africa, a small minority of members of each race will be attracted to members of other races. Their union will have to be accepted as a fact of that situation. But for the most part members of each race will marry those with whom they have a common background and culture, i.e. their own people. One of the long term consequences of racial equality will be the growth of non- racism, i.e. the establishment

56 BLACK GoVERNmr ? of a unity beneath racial differences. Hence, at that point much of the psychological revulsion against inter-marriage will have disappeared. Also if there is complete racial equality then one of the greatest draw-backs to inter- marriage i.e. half-caste children, will be removed in that where there is no race consciousness there will be no stigma in being coloured. Though this problem is often to the front of the European mind it is not a problem which in general pre- occupies the African mind.

CHAPTER FOUR "We want and movement" KAUNDA: WE LIVE IN A POLICE STATE The term "a police state" can easily be misunderstood. What a row there was when the Devlin Commission said Nyasaland is a Police State! Let me tell my own story and you can judge for yourself what I mean. The European is never conscious of living in a police state. There is no temptation for him to break the law while he basks in the warm sun of his superior power, his privilege and his wealth. Up to the 20th October, 1958, there was only one nationalist organisation representing Africans - The African National Congress, whose President was Mr. Harry Nkumbula, and I was the organisation's Secretary. At this time I broke away from the African National Congress over the question of constitutional proposals in Northern Rhodesia. I believed that the Africans were not having a square deal. Mr. Nkumbula accepted

BLACK GOVERNMENT? the proposals, and wanted to give them a fair trial. He was subsequently elected as a member for South Western constituency and now sits as the only member of A.N.C. in the present Legislative Council in which eight seats are reserved for Africans in an assembly of 30 members. At the same time there was a general dissatisfaction with the leadership of the A.N.C. The A.N.C. had been working under difficulties due to police interference, but when I formed the Zambia A.N.C. these difficulties increased due to the implementation of the Public Order Ordinance and the Societies Ordinance. We were not allowed to hold any meetings without police permission and supervision. It is often argued that the same laws as govern the regulating of African political movements also operate where European parties are concerned, so Africans have no more cause for complaint than Europeans. Now in practice this is not so because European political parties can and do very easily hold their meetings, indoors where, according to the law, police permission and supervision is not required. On the other hand our political meetings are so large that no halls would accommodate all the people that come to attend these meetings so that in the circumstances this law becomes discriminatory against Africans. And anyway, Africans do not possess halls in the townships. The procedure required for the gaining of police permission is so involved that it is just impossible to hold meetings at short notice. The authority to hold meetings rests. with the Regulating Officer in each area who is given wide powers. According to Section 4A of Public Order Ordinance (Cap. 260) a regulating officer shall specify such conditions attaching to the holding of any assembly or procession, for which he may issue a permit, as he may deem necessary to impose for the preservation of public peace and order. Such conditions may relate to all or any of the following matters: (a) "The date upon which, and the place andtime:

"WE WANT FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND MOVEMENT" at which the assembly or procession is authorised to take place. (b) The maximum duration of the assembly or I procession. (c) In the case of an assembly, the person who may or not be permitted to address such assembly, and the matters which may not be discussed at the assembly. (d) Any other matter designed to preserve public peace and order". On the reverse side of permit issued by the are the words :-"Whenever any condition has been imposed by the Regulating Officer upon the issue of a permit in accordance with the above section, then it is obligatory upon the person to whom the permit is issued to read that condition aloud within the hearing of all those assembled immediately at the commencement of the meeting or procession and before any of the business of the assembly has been carried out. It is under this regulation that the Zambia A.N.C. meetings were banned by various regulating officers in the month of February 1959, at the time when we were trying to explain our reasons for boycotting the Benson Constitution. I petitioned the Governor, then Sir Arthur Benson, and we were allowed one meeting in Lusaka and shortly after that we were banned again. I had no alternative but to call a meeting without permission and as a result I was charged with calling an unlawful meeting and was sentenced to nine months imprisonment. This was the case when they banned Zambia A.N.C. and it is still the case today. In fact, the presence of Police gives more cause for more provocation these days. To support what I am saying I remember very clearly what took place at a Lusaka meeting that I

BLACK GOVERNMENT ? addressed when I came from gaol. The police officer in charge of this meeting came forward and interrupted my speech because he thought I was not holding the police microphone properly - the police record on a tape recorder all our meetings. This was greatly resented by the people attending the meeting and there is no doubt at all that a riot would have transpired had I not appealed to the audience to be patient and non-violent. The ludicrousness of this regulation was shown during the recent Billy Graham Campaign in Northern Rhodesia when the police were required to make tape recordings of the addresses of the Evangelists and make notes on the words of the hymns and choruses sung. Truly Christianity must be a seditious religion! MORRIS: I have listened to your comments most carefully because you have described some of the facts of life in Central Africa which are foreign to the experience of most Europeans here, as you yourself have pointed out. And I certainly appreciate the difficulty of trying to organise a political movement under such conditions. Nevertheless, I must challenge your basic premise that Northern Rhodesia is a police state. I concede your point with regard to Nyasaland in view of the Devlin Report and the fact that there has been government by Emergency Regulation for almost a year there. I also agree that there is not the same degree of personal freedom here as there is in Britain, for example. The two Ordinances that you have mentioned, together with the recent Public Security Bill, could, under certain conditions, provide a legislative framework for police state rule. But that point has not yet been reached. No doubt you could reply that I as a European can afford to take a charitable view of the present situation because I am not subject to the same degree of restriction as that within which you must live and work. I grant that. But I understand by police state one where the

"WE WANT FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND MovEMENT" following conditions apply: 1. Over-ruling or short-circuiting of the Legislature or Judiciary. 2. Imposition of arbitrary laws by force. 2. Denial of the right of the Opposition to oppose. 4. Drastic curtailment of freedom of expressions both written and spoken. Now judging Northern Rhodesia by these standards, I could not honestly apply to it the term 'police state'. It is certainly not a truly democratic state, but where on the Continent of Africa is there a true democracy? Take the limiting case - Ghana. Has the official Opposition there any greater freedom of action and movement than your movement here? Don't misunderstand me. I am not trying to score a cheap debating point in citing the case of Ghana. Rather I would see Ghana as symbolising the instability and volatility of emergent Africa, where totally opposing systems of values are expressed by rival political movements. It seems to me that democracy on the British pattern will only work where both Government and Opposition base their policies upon a common system of values; where there is basic agreement upon the ends of the State but wide divergence of opinion on the means by which these ends can be attained. Where there is basic disagreement about ends, then Governments change not be the electoral process but by revolution. This surely is the basic problem of both Ghana and Northern Rhodesia, and many another African territory. Both Governments would argue the paradox that to ensure a certain type of constitutional development, some constitutional must be restricted in order to safeguard the stability of the State. Obviously to you, such arbitrary actions by the Government of Ghana would be acceptable because you would share with them a common system of values. Since this is not the case in Northern Rhodesia at present, you understandably feel that you are living in a police state.

BLACK GOVERNMENT? I'm sorry if this sounds terribly reactionary, but you will agree, I think, that Africa is not Hyde Park Corner, where the worst consequences of outrageous expressions of opinion are verbal slanging-matches. Here the tragic consequences of the extreme expression of opinion by both races have been death and suffering, both in defence of the law and in defiance of it. There is also such a great gap between the degree of sophistication of many African political leaders and their frustrated and embittered audiences that equivocal expressions and unguarded metaphors can lead to spontaneous outbreaks of violence from which no one benefits. Hence, some degree of closer control upon public utterance seems to me justifiable. But that control should be just as stringent in the case of European political meetings as well as African. Unfortunately it is not. I have heard Europeans express publicly views for which Africans would be imprisoned. The reason for this impunity, as you have well stated, is not any inequality before the law so much as the practical difficulty that European politicians can always find a hall large enough to accommodate their audiences, whilst Africans, for lack of any halls other than those owned by either Mines or Municipalities, are forced to meet in the open air, and so come within operation of the various Ordinances. For this reason, I would like to see our African churches made available for political meetings at which reasonable freedom of expression could be permitted. And the control would then be exercised not by the police but by our African ministers and Elders. Many Christians, I know, will be horrified by such a suggestion. Yet it seems to me infinitely more desirable than a state of affairs, which I can envisage where violence occurs spontaneously at an open air meeting, and the crowd vents all its pent-up frustration on the poor European Inspector and African Constables who are merely doing their duty in terms of the Regulations. Also, to allow political meetings in

"'WE WANT FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND MOVEMENT" the African churches would give those churches a genuine community function, in contrast to the present position where they tend to be haunts of once-weekly pietism, totally divorced from the life of their townships. But having justified under present conditions a degree of Governmental control over freedom of expression, let me hasten to say that I would still lay at the door of the Governments of the Federation the responsibility for the state of affairs whereby such regulations become necessary. Restrictive legislation can too easily become a substitute for the courageous implementation of positive legislation aimed at removing the causes of grievance which have created the explosive situation. My contention would be that had the four Governments of the Federation dealt effectively with the evil of the colour bar, and the problem of ensuring adequate channels of political expression for the African people, much of the present restrictive legislation would have been unnecessary. From a Christian point of view, a Government has only the right to restrict individual freedoms provided that it can also demonstrate the sincerity of its intention to deal with those injustices which the Opposition is prevented from fighting because of the restrictions on its activity. Otherwise that Government degenerates into tyranny. And I would say that any Government which can only maintain obedience and good order by the application of permanent Emergency Powers has forfeited the moral right to rule. We have not reached this pass yet in Northern Rhodesia, and it is the direct responsibility of the Church to maintain such a degree of vigilance as will ensure that it never happens. One final personal comment. I have probably been as outspoken as any European in Nothern Rhodesia in criticising aspects of the present situation. In fairness, I should record that I have not suffered any of the consequences which would undoubtedly have followed in a true police state. This does not in itself destroy

BLACK GOVERNMENT? the validity of your argument since I have not the power to command the allegiance of the masses in the way that you have. Nevertheless, it is a sign of hope which captious critics of Northern Rhodesia should not discount. KAUNDA: The source of our grievances goes deeper than the Law. WE ARE STRANGERS IN OUR OWN LAND This is the situation, and it has been brought about by White Settler attitudes. The African people of Northern Rhodesia are strangers and foreigners in their own land. We are debarred from many of the rights and privileges of responsible men. European settler sentiment, more powerful than the law, frowns us down. We are compelled to contribute to the resources of a country which gives us little production. Now, at present, freedom of speech is limited, and there is no right to assemble except with police permission, and supervision. We are taxed without consent. The African people have been made a separate class in their own land. Strangers from all lands are preferred before them, despite the fact that hardly two decades ago we went to war for Britain's interests against the nations of many of these aliens. We, the original inhabitants of this land, are forced to submit to the imposition upon us of the racial doctrines of South African settlers. And British immigrants, who are supposedly our guardians, very quickly assimilate these doctrines and become our oppressors. Even though our various governments claim that they condemn these doctrines, because they are at the mercy of an almost entirely white electorate they do nothing in practice to destroy them. Sir Roy Welensky himself has said "The Government may have the means to legislate against discrimination but they may not have the mandate of the electorate".

"WE WANT FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND MOVEMENT" MORRIS: It is the dilemma expressed in that quotation from Sir Roy Welensky which has led a number of thoughtful people to question whether representative democracy is the best system of Government for Central Africa. If Sir Roy Welensky, or any other Prime Minister advances too far ahead of the wishes of the European electorate in putting into practice liberal policies, he will almost certainly forfeit office in favour of a more representative (from a European view-point) leader. Equally, I would suggest that if you one day become the Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia, your position will be in jeopardy if your policies do not reflect the wishes of the majority African electorate. This may seem to indicate on my part a very pessimistic view of human nature; nevertheless, I think it is a pipe- dream to imagine that one can keep race out of politics in Central Africa. ,One of the people who has seen this clearly I think, is Sir John Moffat who suggests that neither race can be trusted to act non-racially when the reins of power are in its hands. Europeans at present are certainly not acting non-racially, and nothing suggests that the African people will be any more disinterested. For this reason democracy running to its full term may lead to the oppression of minority races. Is not this the reason why there are no genuinely democratic multi-racial states on the continent of Africa. Sir John's solution is some kind of Constitutional Court to which all legislation with racial implications must be referred by the elective Legislature for a ruling. This Court would be appointed of eminent jurists, prominent citizens who could be trusted to be nonpartisan, and so on. Thus although there would still be a degree of representative democracy it could not operate on racial lines. I am no constitutional expert, and there may be all kinds of objections to such a scheme which would

BLACK GovERNmNT ? not occur to me. But this suggestion ought not to be dismissed without very close study. For what are the alternatives? If Europeans allow the democratic process to run the whole gamut they will be at the mercy of an African electorate, and they have no right to expect better treatment than they have meted out to the African people whilst they have had a monopoly of political power. Or else, they might tinker with the Constitution to prevent power leaving their hands, by raising the franchise qualifications, which could lead to bloody revolution. Because there are so many constitutional problems involved in finding a just system of Government where two races in sizeable numbers live cheek by jowl in one country, it seems to me that our Government would find it more profitable to spend money in sending African political leaders to Britain or the United States to learn the theory and practice of Government, instead of spending large sums on security measures against them. This would avoid the situation which will arise in the Congo on the 30th June this year, where the African people will have full political power placed in their hands with hardly a single African leader trained and experienced in Government. Such far-sightedness would also bring realism to the thinking of African political leaders, and temper some of their demands with a knowledge of what is constitutionally possible. I cannot blame you for rejecting such constitutional niceties in favour of straight- forward democracy, since it must work to your advantage. But you cannot ,expect Europeans to accept such a solution easily. And I wish I could be sure that representative democracy would ensure justice for all races.

CHAPTER FIVE "We want one man one vote KAUNDA: My rejection of the basis on which our multi-racial society is built springs from my belief that man has certain inalienable rights. These rights are given lip service under the false name of "Partnership", "Democracy" etc., but in practice they are denied to me and my people. We recognise in all men certain natural rights. Among these are life, liberty and the right to acquire, possess and enjoy property. And every people has a right to institute a government and to choose and adopt that system or form of it, which, in their opinion, will most effectually accomplish these objects, and secure their happiness - and how can this be accomplished unless each citizen has the right to vote? WHERE IS THE DEMOCRACY IN CENTRAL AFRICA? I am told that I live in a democratic state, that I

BLACK GOVERNMENT? must give my allegiance to Western Democracy. What is this Democracy I am offered? I find Africans still being treated in their own country as second class citizens. The reason for this is that the settler by virtue of his economic strength has gained control of the legislature. Democracy becomes a mockery when it is realised that the average wage of the African mine worker in the highest paid industry in Central Africa - the Copper Mines - is £99 per annum, and that of his white fellow worker is £1,932 it will be seen that this highly qualitative franchise virtually renders every European a voter on the basis of one man one vote, whilst it effectively excludes Africans. The ownership of property helps to qualify the European for the vote, but all the land that is owned by Africans never counts for his property. By custom the land is owned communally and therefore cannot be claimed as an individual African to be owned personally even though he builds his house on it and grows his food on it. This division of normal human beings into "ordinary", "special" and "ungraded" (voteless) is unethical, unchristian, and contrary to Western democratic values. It is morally wrong in that Africans who can qualify are relatively so few that they cannot by voting bring about any really significant constitutional change. It is the queerest Constitution the world has ever produced. What is the difference between the universal enfranchised Africans in Basutoland, Nigeria or Somaliland and ourselves in Northern Rhodesia who are still voteless? What is the difference between the Congolese African who will soon be voting universally in Elisabethville and his voteless brother across the border in Northern Rhodesia? Nay, such an arrangement is faulty. Such a constitution is unchristian and unethical. It contains the seeds of hatred, suspicion and fear. It is useless to preach racial harmony where such a situation exists.

"WE WANT ONE MAN ONE VOTE" Why do we demand one man one vote? The history of the struggle of British women for the vote shows that when voteless classes are enfranchised Parliamentarians pay more attention to them. "Soon after 1918 when British women got the vote, a number of old sex inequalities were swept away. After 1918 Government became concerned with things of interest to women such as housing, maternity, education, food prices, etc. To get elected, candidates for the Parliament had to show an interest in these matters. To win general elections governments had to win the support of millions of women voters. "The opponents of votes for women were haunted by the fear that women would combine and (since there were more of them) outvote them! Has it happened? No indeed " (Mary Stocks, Rhodesia Herald 25/9/,59). It is clear that had Africans a vote these difficulties would be attended to. This is not the only reason for 'one man, one vote'. Through the vote people get rid of anger and frustration. The vote is a safety valve. MORRIS: The thickets of Political Theory are certainly not my natural habitat, and therefore you'll have to accept my comments for what they are worth. I agree that 'one man one vote' is a just demand if the right to vote is one of the inalienable rights of man which you mentioned. But this would mean making the prior assumption that Democracy as such is the God-ordained form of Government. If God intended us all to be democrats then He doubtless also included the right to a vote as one of our built-in rights! The danger here is that we all tend to deify the particular system which we regard as desirable. Certainly it is widely assumed that Western Democracy is 'christian' in a way that, say, the Peoples' of or Eastern

BLACK GOvRNMErNT? Europe are not. It is a dangerous assumption. The most that I could say would be that democracy is one of a number of ways of securing a just society, and experience has proved it fairly effective and equitable. That is all I as a Christian would claim for it. And unless democracy is the God-ordained solution to the problems of political power, then I do not see that the right to vote is one of man's inalienable rightswhich are those surely that apply. in any society at any time. My view would be that a man is entitled to vote not because he is a man but because he is a citizen. If he is exercising the responsibilities of citizenship then he is entitled to vote, but not unless. Even the so-called universal suffrage of Great Britain to which Africans look enviously, is really a qualified franchise along the lines I have suggested. Royalty, Peers, children, the mentally deranged or handicapped, the criminal, and aliens, are denied the vote because for diverse reasons, they are not exercising the responsibilities of citizenship, or else have some other means of influencing their political destinies. This, I think, effectively destroys the contention that the vote is an inalienable right of the human being. I suppose my distinction - a vote for the citizen but not for the man - since it is implying a qualitative franchise, puts the onus upon me to decide just what is the measuring rod which must be used to indicate capacity for citizenship. In the first place I would suggest that franchise qualifications should be fixed at such a level as will include as many of the adult inhabitants as possible. At present they seem rather to be a device for excluding as many people as possible in order to avoid a shift in the balance of power. There are many, many more Africans who know what the basic political issues of Central Africa are about than our European politicians would have us believe. ^In fact, I would go further and claim that the African

"WE WANT ONE MAN ONE VOTE" town-dweller has often more detailed knowledge of political issues, and greater interest in them, than his European counterpart. I have proved this to my own satisfaction by the close questioning of both. If franchise qualifications were fixed realistically then it is quite possible that in a comparatively short while the vast majority of adult Africans in the Territory would be enfranchised. This would not be 'one man one vote' on principle, but the empirical fact that almost all adult Africans have the necessary capacity for exercising the responsibilities of citizenship. This may seem a hair-splitting distinction, but I am convinced that it is an important one. This is not the place to discuss Constitutional reform, but it seems to me that for the immediate future the balance of power between the races ought to be fixed arbitrarily rather than by allowing the balance to be decided experimentally through the distribution of the franchise. However, more of this later. I agree with you entirely that the Dual Roll system is wrong. One accepts the good intentions of those who evolved it - to make the operation of the Special Roll a training-ground in electoral democracy. I am quite sure that it is not having this effect but is merely perpetuating the belief of Africans that they are second class citizens. A useful start towards equity could be made by adding the present 'special' voters to the common roll. Correct me if I am wrong, but I suspect that the African demand for universal suffrage is partly prompted by a fear that Europeans will not allow the democratic process to run its full course if it looks as though Africans are within sight of a voting majority, and so will continually raise the franchise qualifications to ensure that the present balance of power remains undisturbed. Here we are dependent upon the integrity of the British Government to make certain that the promise implied in any qualified franchise system is kept. It is on this

BLACK GOVERNMENT? ground only that they have any moral right to resist the demand for 'one man one vote'. KAUNDA: It was hardly three decades ago that the AFRICAN MAGNA CARTA, enunciated by a former Conservative Secretary of State, the Duke of Devonshire, declaring the policy of African paramountcy, was lauded: "His Majesty's Government", stated the Devonshire Declaration of 1923, "Think it necessary definitely to record this considered opinion that the interests of the African Natives must be paramount, and that if and when those interests and the interests of the immigrant races conflict, the former should prevail". Today this promise of paramountcy made to the trusting Africans in the name of H.M. the Queen is a dead letter and all that has happened since the imposition of Federation upon Africans shows that settlers don't mean to respect this African Magna Carta. An impartial observer would be forced to conclude that the whole machinery of Government in Central Africa is dedicated to maintaining the precise opposite of the Devonshire Declaration - i.e. white supremacy. Northern Rhodesian Africans feel that the bringing about of Central African Federation was designed to remove the protected status of the Africans and all that has happened since the imposition of Federation supports this view. Settlers now demand the abrogation (transfer of Protectorate Treaties from London to Salisbury really means abrogation) of treaties between H.M. Government and our forebears and even urge Africans to look to Salisbury and not to London. Statements made by Sir Roy Welensky ever since he assumed power have done more than anything else to make Africans feel strongly about their protected status. Under this they believed and still believe that their aspirations and hopes of ruling themselves can be achieved. At one time he said in Parliament "Even

"WE WANT ONE MAN ONE VOTE" in 100 or 200 years time, the African shall never hope to dominate the Federation". In a moment of political folly at Ndola on 2nd December, 1959, he said: "Responsible Government for Northern Rhodesia should be on the same basis that Southern Rhodesia has enjoyed since 1924". Since the African people through their chiefs originally asked the British Queen (then Victoria) for protection, it is our view that only the African people can now ask to be released from protection. Certainly the British Government would be acting unconstitutionally if it transferred that protection to the Federal Government without the agreement of the African people. That agreement will never be given. The doctrine of paramountcy of African interests was replaced by the doctrine of partnership without the agreement of the African people. Colonial Secretaries since the Duke of Devonshire have ceased to talk about paramountcy and are now talking about partnership. What is this partnership? The word partnership was invented by the architects of Federation so that they would sell the idea of Federation to the British Government. Since then no one in authority has been able to define what partnership means. Sir Roy Welensky even appointed a Committee to define partnership, but it never reported. Sir John Moffat at one time tried to get his definition of it (Moffat Resolution 1954) accepted in the Federal House but that was rejected by the Federal Government. In the main, partnership does not mean anything. It is, as I said, something to hoodwink the British public. You, Mr. Morris, once called it "the greatest confidence trick in modern political history". My own observations are these; that (a) When we speak in terms of partnership we are immediately perpetuating in the minds of the people the idea that there are many different types of people who must be treated differently but brought together

BLACK GOVERNMENT ? in a form of partnership, whereas if -we left society completely non-racial, people would tend to think in terms of society as a whole, and not as racial groups., (b) In this "partnership" we find that highly placed men in Government speak and act in terms of senior and junior partners. This puts the African at a great disadvantage. Imagine how we feel about Partnership when we hear Lord Malvern, first and former Prime- Minister of the Federation, say that to him this partnership meant the same as the partnership that existed between rider and horse. Nothing could show more clearly that "Partnership" means white supremacy. It is, in fact, a different word for apartheid. As far as Africans are concerned such terms as partnership, multi-racialism and the like terms have meant one thing and one thing only. And that is white supremacy. We' reject the term partnership, not because we don't like people of other races to make this their home, but simply because the term has been abused. Where is the partnership for instance, when as I have already pointed out I am harrassed and embarrassed wherever I go in society. If I may take a single example here; when I want to catch a bus I must catch one that is meant for Africans only. A thousand and one pin-pricks become a sharp pain and make it impossible for me -to believe, and for that matter to accept, the idea of partnership as a form of life that I would accept. In the circumstances I think I am justified in believing now that the only name, if there is anything in a name at all, our society ought to adopt is a "non-racial" society. In such a society one is not reminded of one's colour as for instance I found to be the case when I travelled in Britain, India, Ghana and the Togoland Republic. In all these countries there were mixed races, but such vague and undefined terms as "partnership" that are peculiarly our experience here, are unknown there. To me it is clear that no one country can strictly be occupied by a single race. All over the

"WE WANT ONE MAN ONE VOTE" world people of different races, and nations live together, but it is the majority in all these countries that rules. Quite naturally where political systems place political and economic power in the hands of the minority groups these systems fail to satisfy the aspirations and demands of the majority. The demands and aspirations of the majority frighten the minority groups in power, and they react by employing various methods in order to safeguard their privileged positions. They will employ all sorts of methods to keep that power in their hands. As a result police states are created, men lose sight of the most important values and are guided by fear, suspicion and hatred. On the other hand those who suffer this oppression react very strongly. They are forced by circumstances to lose sight of the fact that was so ably described by Andrew Marvell when he said "The world in all doth but two nations bear. The good, the bad, and these mix everywhere". They become bitter, and will only consider those things that can protect them from this oppression. MORRIS: Someone ought to compile a Dictionary of Discarded Vocabulary for Central Africa - a list of words which though good in themselves have acquired such grotesque connotations that no one who hopes to talk rationally about the political situation here dare use them. There's partnership, federation, commission, nationalism, for a beginning. It is tragic that the word 'partnership' has become so debased through political double-talk, because in itself it is a most useful way of describing the relations between the races. Lord Malvern, with -that notorious horse-rider definition which has now become part of the mythology of Central Africa, destroyed in one sentence any intrinsic worth the word might have. And now even the United Federal Party have abandoned it

BLACK GOVERNMENT? after twisting it in every way to avoid having to apply its primary meaning - a free association of those who share a common endeavour, accepting proportionately the profits and losses of the enterprise. Yet partnership is a word of high significance in the Christian vocabulary, and expresses a philosophy which might well have guided the peaceful and just development of our society. Max Warren in his Merrick Lectures offers a most illuminating analysis of the philosophical content of the term which, translated into practical politics, the African people would have been happy to accept. He says: "Partnership, sharing with another or with others in action, is constituted of three factors. First there must be the acceptance by each one concerned of genuine involvement, a commital of himself to the other partner in trust. This element of trust is inescapable whatever the legal definition of the terms of partnership. This becomes apparent when the other two constituting factors are considered. The acceptance of responsibility, the readiness to serve the purpose of the common enterprise, cannot be a 'calculated less or more' if there has been a commital in trust. Again involvement must carry with it a readiness to pay the price of partnership, to accept all the liabilities and limitations which arise. Involvement, responsibility, liability - without these there can be no partnership. In proportion as they are accepted the partnership becomes not only satisfying but creative. The essence of partnership is that it is a relationship entered upon in freedom by free persons who remain free. Their relationship is a dynamic one. It cannot be stereo-typed. For only in such a dynamic relation to one another can each do justice to the other so that together they can do justice to the object of their partnership. By "WE WANT ONE MAN ONE VOTE" 'dynamic', of course, I mean a living relationship which is continually growing and developing, the very opposite of 'static'." Warren. Partnership. S.C.M. Press, pp. 12-13. Surely there is here expressed a worthwhile and honourable basis for the relations of our two races. By the cynical misuse of the term, some of the politicians of the Federation have not only done great damage to race relations, but have destroyed communication between us. We have tried 'co-operation' and 'association' as ways of visualising our relations, but neither is so pregnant of meaning as the one word we dare no longer use. For this reason it is not only an elevenletter word which has been lost to us, it is the whole philosophy of life expressed by the term. Unless we are to abandon ourselves to the senseless collision of two , we shall have to evolve a new political vocabulary, whose meanings and spirit we honour. For we are rapidly reaching the point where words are losing their objective meaning, and as a result lack of communication is issuing in withdrawal and deepening misunderstanding.

CHAPTER SIX "We want an end to Federation" KAUNDA: In the first place Federation was imposed upon Africans despite their overwhelming opposition. The opposition was shown clearly through mass rallies and resolutions passed and sent to the British Government. Indeed various delegations were sent to Britain in 1952 and 1953, consisting of Chiefs and African leaders. The money used to send these delegations was subscribed in tickies and sixpences by Africans from both urban and rural areas. Secondly, Africans are against Federation because they believe that this is going to perpetuate inequalities. Now since the creation of Federation the people in power have done so little to show Africans that their fears were groundless. I have given several reasons above to support this view. It is often said by the Federal Government that they increased African seats in 1958 in the Federal Parliament. What they did

"WE WANT AN END TO FEDERATION" not say, was that at the same time they increased the number of European seats to such an extent that Africans ended up with proportionately less representation. The protests of the African Affairs Board at the time were overruled. This did not surprise us because Sir Roy Welensky said of it in Umtali (28th March, 1953), "I am satisfied that the African Affairs Board will have no executive power". In fact it had no power at all. The Board has been a mockery. Thirdly, Africans fear that racial policies will spread from Southern Rhodesia to our country. In the Southern Rhodesian Parliament there is not a single African. Such Acts as the Land Apportionment Act are dreaded by Africans in this country. The carrying of passes in Southern Rhodesia is nearer to the South African system than ours. It is the only country which has a strong Dominion party following. (United Federal Party 17 and Dominion Party 13). In more recent times Mr. , a Liberal Prime Minister, was ousted from office. Fourthly, the fear of losing their protected status which could lead to national independence and selfdetermination is very real amongst Africans. Africans believe that with a powerful Federal Government controlled by settlers they stand no chance at all of achieving these aspirations. The Federal Goverment, anxious to retain power in the hands of the settlers, sets a high qualification for the franchise. Already in the past in Southern Rhodesia, qualifications for the franchise have been raised. There is nothing to stop the Federal Government from raising the qualification as soon as they see the possibility of Africans outnumbering the Europeans on the roll. MORRIS: Two aspects of the British Government's thinking at the time of the inception of the Federation baffle

BLACK GOVERNMENT ? me. Firstly, how could they lend themselves to the establishment of a political conformation to which the majority of the inhabitants in the area concerned were inflexibly opposed? Pioneer missionaries have told me that the rumblings of African opposition could be heard in the far-off days of the Amalgamation debate. By 1953, that rumble had become a roar. Yet the British Government went blithely ahead setting up a political organism whose instability could be taken for granted from the beginning. The truth may well be as you claim, that the British Government was indulging the wishes of the white settlers in Northern and Southern Rhodesia. If this is so, then the British Government did them a great disservice in conniving at the building of a so-called bulwark against Black Africa marching South. For within the fortress itself, the defenders are outnumbered by the 'enemy' 25 to 1. Possibly the land-bound Rhodesian settlers could be forgiven for being unaware of the tremendous forces of about to be unleashed across Africa in 1953. But the Colonial Office, with its responsibilities at every point of the compass throughout the Continent, ought to have known, and resisted the foolish demand that the Federation should be set up regardless of the wishes of the African people. Secondly, it amazes me that seasoned statesmen like those who provided from the U.K. side the initiative toward the creation of the Federation could possibly have imagined that the linking of two Territories as dissimilar as Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland would form a stable political unit. As much try to federate the United States and Soviet Russia! Certainly, the inclusion of Nyasaland in the Federation cannot be laid at the door of the Central African politicians who were present at the 1953 Talks. Even as they accepted the U.K. Government's demand that Nyasaland be included in the parcel or there was no sale, they must have had a gloomy foreboding of what has now come

"'WE WANT AN END TO FEDERATION" to pass -that Nyasaland is the focus of pressures toward dissolution which are becoming irrestible. The present dilemma of the Federal Government is an agonising one. They would, no doubt, be happy to kiss Nyasaland a tearless farewell and so cut out the core of disaffection. Yet they are perfectly well aware that should Nyasaland shake herself free from the Federation, Northern Rhodesia Africans, greatly encouraged, will intensify their efforts to follow suit. The Federation is truly an unholy alliance, joined together by bonds of mutual detestation between the Territories, and presided over by a Government which has the confidence of a mere fractional minority of the total inhabitants. Africans have known all this from the beginning. It is significant that more and more white Rhodesians from both the North and the South are also coming to realise the Federation's ill-starred future. Southern Rhodesians are becoming uneasily aware that the Federation is not likely to provide them with a firm bastion against black nationalism since they will be tied to two African dominated states in the very near future - like Albert locked in the cage with the Lion! Northern Rhodesians, on the other hand, have been taking a close look at the balance sheet, and some of them are beginning to claim that the Federation was an economic confidence trick perpetrated by Southern Rhodesia to lay hold of the rich red treasure of the copper mines. It would not be true to claim that either of these views are majority opinions, but they are not less significant for that. The Federal Government needs every single white supporter in order to counterbalance the pressure of the millions of black opposers. Once there is any sizeable cleavage of European opinion about the desirability of the Federation, then its doom is sealed. To the Christian, the most disquietening feature of the battle raging around the future of the Federation

BLACK GOVERNMENT? is the cynical materialism of the Federal Government's thinking. Federal politicians, when challenged on the grounds of morality, have been reduced to replying on the grounds of economy. They reiterate again and again the economic benefits of Federation as the clinching argument for its continuance - a sad reflection on the crass materialism of our society. For in the vicious pursuit of wealth and the primacy of the economic motive our society is as materialistic as any on earth. Nyasaland may or may not have benefitted economically from Federation, there are two schools of thought on this, but there is no doubt that economic benefits pale into insignificance compared with the drive toward political freedom which possesses her African population. Can there have been a greater misunderstanding of the contemporary spirit of Black Africa than that reflected in the recent statement of Mr. Justice Beadle of Southern Rhodesia when he claimed that "Africans want bread not votes"? No society in Africa established solely on the grounds of economic expediency can possibly withstand the external pressures to which it will be subjected by neighbouring states expressing the dynamic unity which nationalism provides. The major question remains. What future has the Federation? Even as this discussion takes place, the Monckton Commission is collecting evidence throughout Northern Rhodesia, and it would be foolish to anticipate its findings. But I can see only one way forward. The constitutional development of the Federation should be frozen following the Talks this year. No further powers should be granted to the Federal Government, and preferably some in the spheres of Education and Health should be taken from it. In the meantime the three Territories should press on with their constitutional development, and when there is fully representative government in each of them, they can meet on equal terms to decide the future of the Federation. I can see no other way out, and I am not insensible

"'WE WANT AN END TO FEDERATION" of the tremendous work put in by some statesmen and Government officials to make the Federation work for the benefit of all races here. The Federation may have a future as a limited form of association between the three Territories involving a defence, customs and postal union. I don't know. But I do know that any attempt to swell the powers of the Federal Government at the present time may lead to widespread violence. You will agree that violence provides no solution for the African people since the greater volume of suffering would be theirs. At all costs an armed impasse must be avoided. Pray God that it is by now clear to the British Government that they dare not trespass upon the patience of the African people any longer. One final comment. It is the fashion for Federal Cabinet Ministers to refer to those who advocate the break-up of the Federation as "dismal Jeremiahs". Perhaps a parson ought to point out that Jeremiah was proved right in the end, and those who did not listen to him perished! KAUNDA: We seem to be so much in general agreement that this is probably the point where I should deal with a matter on which you and I have disagreed publically- the question of supporting or boycotting the Monckton Commission. Since the future of the Federation is connected with the reasons for the United Independence Party's declared boycott, I would like to state our reasons here. In the first place, the terms of reference are so narrow as far as Africans are concerned that by participating in the giving of evidence before this Commission we would be accepting the idea of Federation, i.e. the terms of reference are concerned with affecting improvements to the Federation. If we give evidence, therefore, we are saying in effect we want to improve the Federation,

BLACK GOVERNMENT ? when in actual fact we want to see it broken up. Secondly, Sir Roy Welensky is being allowed by the British Government to sit as judge in his own case. Thirteen of these members of the Commission come from the Federation and except for the Chairman and three others, Africans have not much confidence in the rest. Then, the fate of the Devlin Commission report is a clear pointer to the fact that reports by Commissions will only be accepted by the Governments when their findings suit it. Furthermore, Africans find it very difficult to understand the movements of Lord Hume and Sir Roy Welensky. We find it very difficult to escape making this conclusion that the Macmillan Government has already in fact reached agreement with the White Government here before his African tour. Lastly, we of the U.N.I.P. are satisfied that when we presented our memorandum on the situation here to the British Prime Minister we had in actual fact told the British Government all that they wished to find out and if they don't pay heed to what is contained therein, we cannot be held responsible for any mistakes they may make in deciding upon what course Central African shall take after the review conference in London. MORRIS: I agree entirely that the Commission is most unsatisfactory both in terms of reference and personnel. An imaginative British Government, by including commissioners from Ghana or Nigeria, could have won much more African confidence here. However, on balance, I still think it would have been a good thing for Africans to give evidence. First, its terms of reference. I think that it was foolish not to try to discover the answer to the question which most concerns all Africans and many Europeans in the Federation, i.e. should the Federation continue?

"WE WANT AN END TO FEDERATION" Nevertheless, there are more ways than one of killing a cat. It would be against the terms of reference to say to the Commission, "We want to break up the Federation", but it would surely have been within the terms of reference to say "We want all the powers at present in the hands of the Federal Government given back to the Territorial Governments". This would render the Federation politically impotent. Secondly, if African leaders do not express the mind of their people on the great issues facing Central Africa then there is nothing to prevent a whole procession of African stooges appearing before the Commission and expressing a viewpoint which is unrepresentative. If as a result of such evidence the Commission is misled into recommending changes which will be to the detriment of the African people, then you have only yourselves to blame. Thirdly, I am afraid I do not see how boycotting the Commission will help to break up the Federation. African leaders from the two Northern Territories also boycotted the 1953 Federation Talks, but Federation nevertheless came into being, and the boycott had the only effect of providing European politicians with grounds for discounting their African counterparts as "immature" and "incapable of utilising a constitutional procedure." Fourthly, since you have boycotted the Commission, are you not also committed to boycotting any results which flow from its recommendations? If one of its findings should be alterations to the Northern Rhodesian Constitution which will give Africans a greater share of political power, what then? Fifthly, although the Commission cannot officially hear evidence against Federation they would be forced to comment upon the high percentage of Africans whose evidence had to be discounted because they were speaking against Federation. This would be the first time that the African opposition to Federation had

BLACK GOVERNMENT? ever been officially measured. Finally, in my view the boycott as a political weapon can be justified only as a last resort. Unfortunately, African leaders tend to use the last resort first. It is also a negative weapon. One of the arts surely, of the democratic system you are demanding, is the ability to extract the maximum benefit for those you represent from the constitutional procedure, no matter how unsatisfactory it might be. The boycott provides little of the training in Government which African political leaders badly need. Preparing and presenting a case before the Commission would have been of great value in this direction in that you would be forced not only to think of tomorrow and your opposition to the Federation, but the day after and your positive proposals for alternatives to it. KAUNDA: We must agree to differ on this subject. To go a step further, we link our demand for the break-up of the Federation with the demand for a new Constitution for Northern Rhodesia. The year is 1960 and the sands of time are running out. We are clinging desperately to our Protected Status in Northern Rhodesia. It is the knowledge of what will happen if Sir Roy Welensky gets his own way at the Federal Constitutional review that drives us to demand Self Government this year on the basis of one man one vote. The following are our proposals for a new Constitution for Northern Rhodesia. They are fundamentally based on our beliefs that Constitutional democracy is incapable of attainment unless there is introduced universal adult suffrage. We claim that there ought to be no qualifications at all for a man to be granted such a natural right - the vote. Black people in other parts of Africa e.g. Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Basutoland and the Congo

"WE WANT AN END TO FEDERATION" to mention a few, have this right and we see no reason whatever for the Africans of Northern Rhodesia to be an exception. We, therefore, call for the immediate implementation of a new Constitution based on Universal Adult Suffrage, i.e. every male or female African on or above the age of 21 years shall have the right to vote; alien nonAfricans on or above the age of 21 years, after three years residence and if an approved citizen, shall have the right to vote. However to allow for an interim period within which an African majority could demonstrate to minority groups that they had nothing to fear from majority rule, we propose the following: PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION The government we seek to establish transitionally shall be formed thus: 44 Africans directly elected Boma wise (that is, each administrative district send ONE representative to the Legislative Assembly). 14 Non-Africans directly elected on the basis of the present constituencies. The Party in majority shall form the Government that is holding all portfolios except those for Defence, External Relations, Law, Finance and Chief Secretaryship MINORITY POSITION There shall be one citizenship and one Law for all. THE POSITION OF CHIEFS There shall be a Central Council of Chiefs. (a) All Paramount Chiefs shall be ex-officio members of the National Council of Chiefs. (b) All Native Authorities shall return one representative who shall be a Chief. POWER OF NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHIEFS (a) Shall safeguard Customary Law, Culture, and traditions. (b) Shall act as guardian and custodians of the Nations by:

BLACK GOVERNMENT? i Checking on Legislations that affect the nation in (a) above. ii Checking on any other legislation. DIREcTIVEs OF STATE POLICY 1. (a) The state shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing as effectively as it may, a social order in which justice, social, economic and political shall inform all the institutions of the national life. (b) That the citizens, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood. (c) That the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good. (d) That the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment. (e) That the health and strength of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children, are not abused and that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age or strength. 2. (a) Promote international peace and security. (b) Maintain just and honourable relations between nations. (c) Foster respect for international law and treaty obligations in the dealings of organised people with one another. (d) Encourage settlement of international disputes by arbitration. THE UNITED NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE PARTY To campaign for our rights in Northern Rhodesia we have formed the National Independence Party whose policy is: 1. To promote understanding and unity among the African people of Northern Rhodesia. 2. To accelerate the liberation of Northern Rhodesia from undemocratic, imperial and Colonial rule.

4"WE WANT AN END To FEDERATION" 3. To mobilise world opinion against the denials of full political rights and fundamental human rights of African people of Northern Rhodesia. 4. To impress upon the British Government that they as a party, by virtue of their signature to the Organisation 'Charter' (Declaration of Human Rights) fulfil their Colonial policy in terms of Article 73 of the Charter. 5. To form a United front against the creation of any Central African Status based on perpetuation of foreign rule. ,6. To co-operate locally and internationally with other political organisations who shall hold in common, the idea of securing political and national freedom of the people of Northern Rhodesia. 7. To impress upon the British Government that measures employed by their representative Colonial Governments, in the suppression of political institutions in Central African territories are contrary to the provision of Article 73 (b) of the United Nations Organisation Charter. S. To work out any progressive schemes - educational, political, and otherwise, which shall be implemented in the national interests of the people of Northern Rhodesia. '9. To communicate with Central Government in matters of national and political concern to Chiefs and the people of Northern Rhodesia. 10. To urge Northern Rhodesia and United Kingdom Governments to expedite Constitutional Reform of Northern Rhodesia so that a representative government is established based on the principle of one man one vote. 11. To strive for the secession of Northern Rhodesia from the Federation NOW. 12. To struggle for "Freedom of Expression" and "Freedom of Association". 13. To facilitate educational grants to any deserving

BLACK GOVERNMENT ? men or women for study within or without Northern Rhodesia. 14. To establish news letters and other magazines in order to advance the interests and aims of U.N.I.P. 15. To work towards the principle of equal opportunities for all races in all aspects of life -wages of the workers, educational facilities, social facilities and other facilities in general. 16. To work in co-operation with industrial organisations, representing workers and to accept their affiliation provided that such organisations shall comply with the policy and principles of the party. 17. To work and protect the interests of commercial traders and help them in their progressive business schemes. 18. To work towards the banishment of economic exploitation in all the industries of Northern Rhodesia. MORRIS: Without detailed study, I would hesitate to comment upon the programme you have set out above. I will content myself with a comment on your Constitutional proposals. Racial prejudice apart, I cannot see your suggested division of seats in the Legislature as a just or realistic solution at the present moment. I agree that there should be a shift in the balance of power between the two races, but the furthest I could go, in all conscience, would be to propose that Africans be, given half the seats held by the Elected Members in the Legislature, and that Officials should hold the balance. I choose fifty per cent as a figure because I think thatis the minimum Africans would accept, and at the same time I think it is the maximum they are entitled to at. the present moment by virtue of their contribution to our society. An evenly divided Legislature would provide a. kind of inter-regnum before democracy runs its full

"WE WANT AN END TO FEDERATION" course - a breathing space necessary for three reasons. In the first place, in the present state of our society, Europeans, despite their numerical minority, are entitled to fifty per cent of political power by virtue of their contribution to our society. In the second place, this inter-regnum would enable African political leaders to gain experience in Government. Thirdly, this inter-regnum is vital in order that Europeans can accustom themselves to a changing racial climate and a state of affairs totally foreign to them. After all, I think you will agree that Northern Rhodesia is not Ghana with its flourishing native industries and agriculture. At present you are abjectly dependent upon European capital and technics in order to maintain a thriving economy. A wholesale departure of Europeans at this point would devastate the country. This you cannot afford to happen. It is my belief that many Europeans will be able to acclimatise themselves to a shift in the balance of political power once they realise that their standards of life and economic opportunities are not threatened. Therefore, I think it behoves you to tread softly and slowly in order to win their confidence. There are white Rhodesians whose claim to the country is as solidly grounded as your own. Whatever solution is found for our future, if it is to be morally defensible, must be one which protects their legitimate interests, as well as your own. Northern Rhodesia has such economic potential that it ought to be possible to press ahead with tremendous African advancement without depriving the European population. This will require great statesmanship on your part to convince your own followers that to despoil the European inhabitants when you have the greater share of political power will not only be unjust but unwise, since whatever stability there is in our economy and industrial way of life Europeans are at present providing.

CHAPTER SEVEN The Future of African Nationalism MORRIS: One phrase in the U.N.I.P. Constitution quoted above particularly interested me. It says that amongst other aims, U.N.I.P. exists "to promote understanding and unity amongst the African people of Northern Rhodesia." Now this, to my knowledge, is the only political party Constitution in Central Africa which is avowedly uni- racial. Even the Dominion Party is careful to leave the door open to members of any race to join, even though it is unlikely that many Africans would find its policy palatable. I wonder if you would state your reasons for rejecting the multi- racial political party solution. And by multi-racial party I mean one whose policy is drawn up by the members of all races and where offices are held without distinction of race. At present of course, there is only one such party, the Central Africa Party, in the field. Obviously, U.N.I.P.'s great strength added to the present member-

THE FuTuRE OF AFRICAN NATIONALISM ship of that Party could make it a power in Legco. Why then, do you reject the multi-racial party solution to your problems? KAUNDA: I suppose that question can best be answered by asking another one. Why does one join a political party at all? I believe that one joins a political party because he feels that party would help him solve certain problems. At the same time those people who join that political party must have common problems. Today in Northern Rhodesia the problems that confront us as a mixed society are so many and varied that I cannot see how a multi-racial party would help, i.e. the major problems are not common problems at all. N ationalism is one of the great forces of the 20th century. We do not need to find grounds for unity as does a multi-racial party- our unity is already there in the colour of our skin and our common suffering. This is a great emotional force and one which can be harnessed for political purposes. When you look at the nations in Africa which have achieved the independence we desire it will be found that a Nationalist movement in each case brought about the solution. No multi-racial political party has yet managed to obtain for Africans their independence. No multi-racial party in Northern Rhodesia has been prepared to commit itself to breaking up the Federation and fighting for Northern Rhodesian Independence. Since the multi-racial bus is not going in our direction we would be foolish to climb on it. Also the only multi-racial party in the field accepts the present Constitution of Northern Rhodesia, which we decisively reject. BLACK GOVERNMENT? MORRIS: You have made two very strong points in your statement of the claims of nationalism as an immensely powerful emotional force. It is equally true that nationalist movements have had more success in the struggle for independence throughout Africa than multi-racial political parties. But this surely is because those territories have been African in a sense that Central Africa is decidedly not; that is, the destiny of sizeable white settler populations were not a significant factor in the situation. Since I am not a member of the Central Africa Party, I obviously cannot answer for them your comments on their attitude to Federation and the Northern Rhodesia Constitution. I think there is a serious principle at stake here. We are living in a multi-racial society, however we define that term. If then you reject multi-racial co-operation in attaining your objects what guarantee have Europeans and other minority peoples, that you will not also reject multi-racialism when you attain power? It is understandable that you are at present concerned with the rights of Africans. But they are not the only rightful inhabitants of Northern Rhodesia. I wish that African nationalist leaders would, in their utterances and policy statements, show greater recognition of this fact. No multi-racial political party can command the same emotional allegiance from the African people which your Movement does, precisely because their policy is a multi-racial one. It has been evolved in such a way as will show regard for the rights of all the races in Central Africa. And it is because the policy is concerned with ensuring a square deal to all races that it lacks any great appeal for the members of any one race. My great fear is that an unyielding attitude on the part of African nationalism now will inevitably result in an equal and opposite reaction amongst Europeans leading to the creation of a white nationalist

THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN NATIONALISM movement. This is already foreshadowed as you know, in the recent formation of the United European Front, inspired by Mr. John Gaunt. Now God preserve us all from a collision of two nationalisms here. But what is the alternative unless African political leaders are prepared to work towards an equitable solution on the problems of political and economic power in co-operation with members of the other races involved? KAUNDA: All I can say is that I believe in fundamental human rights. I hold with the American Founding Fathers that "All men are created equal, and they are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights-amongst these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". When we are in power this will be our guiding philosophy, and therefore the members of no race need fear victimization or oppression. And I should add that U.N.I.P. does not exclude anyone of any race from its membership, provided he accepts our aims and policies and would be a suitable member in other ways. MORRIS: I would like to take a little further this question of the growing exclusiveness of African nationalism because it is worrying. The nationalist movements in Central Africa seem to have reached that stage in their development where they are sloughing off their friends in other races. It is almost as though the need to preserve the dynamism and inner purity of the nationalist movement demands the smashing down of all bridges between the two races. I understand that in Kenya the first targets of Mau Mau atrocities were liberal Europeans who were known to be friends of the Kikuyu rather than reactionary Europeans known to be their enemies. You know my own experience, and I mention it by way of illustration not complaint. After four years

BLACK GOVERNMENT ? of presenting the African case to unsympathetic European communities, I found it necessary to disagree on the issue of the Monckton Commission with the line being adopted by the U.N.I.P., and as you know, I was subjected to hysterically virulent attacks by a number of your colleagues. I am, I hope, by now sufficiently thick-skinned to be able to discount epithets such as. "Tool of Welensky" etc. That is not the point. What is interesting is that nationalism here seems to have reached the stage where the closest friends of the African are unable to express disagreement on a policy or issue of principle without bringing down upon themselves a quality of wrath which is not normally suffered even by the strongest opponents of African advancement. Now I have always fought the view that the African people are children and entitled to neither opinions nor rights. I certainly do not think that the African is a child, but nor do I imagine for a second that he is infallible. He can be wrong, he can make serious mistakes, and it is up to his friends to tell him so. What I would like you to do if you can, is explain the psychology of this present rejection of African nationalism of some of the African's staunchest friends. Is it any longer possible to influence the course and destiny of African nationalism from outside it? Is the price to be paid in retaining the friendship of the African people one hundred per cent uncritical acceptance of all that they say or do? For this uncritical acceptance is something that no Christian can give to any organisation or movement from the State down. My own position as a Christian minister is quite clear. Where I believe that the African people are right I will back them to the hilt, but when I sincerely think they are wrong I shall tell them so - and to their faces. Africans have often complained to me that the Church is in the pocket of European opinion in Central Africa. If it is true, it is a very dangerous situation. But it would be equally dangerous for the Church to climb

Kenneth Kaunda.

THE FuTuRE OF AFRiCAN NATIONALISM into the pocket of the African nationalist movement in order to retain the allegiance of its African membership. I have discovered a very interesting reaction amongst our African Christians recently. A number of Elders of the African Church complained to me that I was getting involved in politics in touring the Copperbelt addressing meetings of Africans in order to put the case for appearing before the Monckton Commission. When I asked them why they hadn't complained during the four years I had preached sermons attacking Europeans about the colour bar, the detention without trial of African political leaders and so on, they replied that in the instances I had quoted I was preaching religion because I was speaking for African rights, but that it was bringing politics into the Church to express an opinion critical of U.N.I.P.'s policy on the Monckton Commission. This sensitivity to honestly intended criticism which more and more Africans are exhibiting has 'almost reached the proportions of a grandeurdelusion. Is it not also true that any African political leader who hopes to keep his position must not be known to have European friends, nor dare he get involved in multi- racial activities? If this is so, then the future looks bleak as far as building a multi- racial society is concerned. KAUNDA: When we examine the question of which way African Nationalism is going I must ask friends of African Nationalism to make a very sympathetic approach to the problem. So many things have happened that African Nationalists have now become very touchy in their approach to major issues, e.g. The Monckton Commission. I cannot actually claim here to have a solution to this problem but I can assure you it is one that constantly exercises the minds of all those African Nationalists who make a humanitarian

BLACK GOVERNMENT? approach to issues that arise in these mixed societies. Quite rightly you have drawn our attention to what took place in Kenya and to the reactions of the African Nationalist leaders when you thought Africans were missing a great chance of presenting their case before the British Government by boycotting the Monckton Commission, which advice I believe you gave sincerely. On the question of the Mau Mau murdering the sympathisers I am afraid I am very badly informed about this and I can only hazard a guess that probably in the process of trying to advise their friends these liberal Europeans fell victims to the very people they were trying to advise, simply because they happened to be nearer. When a man comes home tired and hungry from hunting only to find his wife unready with the meal, in his anger he may hit the child who brings the food at last, though it is his wife who is to blame. On the question of friendship between African Nationalist leaders and Europeans it is true to say that so very often in the past African political leaders became friends with Europeans for the wrong reasons, for reasons of arrogance, or personal advancement or social snobbery, that now Africans look upon all such friendships with suspicion. Although it is indeed risky for a nationalist leader to have too close contact with Europeans nevertheless this seems to be a risk which has to be taken if we are to build a non-racial society and meet within that society not as Africans and Europeans but as human beings. MORRIS: I ought to ask at this point the question which pre-occupies most Europeans in Central Africa. If you reject the present Constitution of Northern Rhodesia, and will take no part in it, how then do you propose to achieve the aims which you have stated at length throughout this discussion? Probably more

THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN NATIONALISM than any other present-day nationalist leader you have expressed your belief in non-violence. At your recent U.N.I.P. Conference you reiterated to your followers your personal dedication to that form of action. Will you explain precisely what you mean by the term 'non-violence'? KAUNDA: Because we have been excluded from the democratic machinery of Government it is a great temptation to try to obtain our objects by non-democratic means as, for example, in Cyprus and Malaya. But I could not lend myself to take part in such campaigns, I reject absolutely violence in any of its forms as a solution to our problems. It is common sense to realise that apart from the humanitarian point of view, to say nothing of the dictates of the Christian conscience, it would be the under-dog who would suffer more human losses in the event of a violent clash. One does not wish to destroy the lives of the very people he wishes to get to the Canaan of his dreams! There is another equally strong reason in support of a non-violent struggle. I am convinced that a non-violent struggle calls for deeper, better, and more useful methods of discipline than resort to violence. Properly grounded, it brings to those involved a sense of confidence and understanding - both spiritual and moral. It develops a loyalty that is bound to be of use even when national independence is attained. We all know, post- independence days do shake and have shaken the best of men into all sorts of things. A welldisciplined party, therefore, schooled in this difficult way becomes an invaluable asset to the country as whole. There is yet another reason. In a non- violent struggle, there are more chances of developing an approach to life that is essentially democratic. What does this entail? Well, as far as I am able to see, non-violence includes in its programme consulta-

BLACK GOVERNMENT? tions or bargaining with those whom you have cause to complain against. You negotiate with them. If you don't agree with their explanation you may or may not give them another chance. I remember as President of the Zambia A.N.C. I had said that if and when I had cause for complaint I would offer those in authority at least three chances for the negotiatory machinery to operate, and if I failed to achieve anything for my people I would then swing into some form of nonviolent action if by that I could achieve my purpose. It is exactly this that I did when I ordered the defiance of the Benson ban on Zambia public meetings, which of course landed me in trouble. But then this was trouble for me and not for those whose actions I complained against. I might as well add here in passing that I have come out of Her Majesty's prisons with a clear and easy conscience, because I believe now as I did then, that what I did was what any true nationalist leader in similar circumstances - who meant to uphold the dignity and honour of the people he claimed to serve - could have done. After all, one who hunts honey must be prepared to suffer bee stings. By allowing the negotiatory machinery to run its full course, non-violent disciples develop in themselves tolerance and the art of appreciating the other fellow's, point of view. This inevitably leads to the art of appreciating the importance of tolerating a reasonable opposition group. This again, done with an eye towards postindependence days is useful machinery especially in such circumstances as ours where the only role open to us is the one in which we are forced to throw all our energies into destructive opposition. MORRIS: What you have just said will reassure all men of goodwill who are praying and working for a just and peaceful outcome of the racial struggle in Central Africa. Your personal stand on the non-violence

Tiq FuTuRE OF AFRICAN NATIONALISM issue is well known and widely respected, but what of your followers? Can you say something about the inevitable problem of anti-social individuals behaving violently in defiance of your stated policy and thus bringing U.N.I.P. into disrepute? I know that much European opinion shows an appalling lack of logic where this question is concerned. After all, if a European who happens to be a member of the Dominion Party beats up an African, no one suggests that this proves that he is carrying out official Dominion Party policy. If, however, an African or Africans are involved in a fracas and it turns out that they are members of U.N.I.P. then the press and public opinion plump unerringly for the conclusion that another violence plot is under way. All this I grant. Nevertheless, I know of wellattested incidents in which acts of intimidation have been committed and violence threatened to African citizens who happen not to see eye to eye with U.N.I.P. Will you, therefore, comment upon the admittedly difficult problem of ensuring that your declared policy and principles percolate throughout your movement, and that your members loyally obey them? KAUNDA: Surely you would agree that no person can be entirely responsible for every single action of every single member of a widely scattered political party? All that I can do is make my policy of non-violence as widely known as possible and discipline severely any cases of unconstitutional action which come to my notice. This I have done very recently when I was instrumental in having a prominent member of our party expelled for making inflamatory utterances. I wish, however, Europeans could realise just how difficult it is to organise and discipline a mass movement covering the whole of Northern Rhodesia. We have no private transport. We haven't even a telephone in our office. Our funds are very limited since they BLACK GOVERNMENT? must be raised from the poorest section of the community. We are under constant surveillance by the police. All these things make communications between our headquarters and our widely scattered branches extremely difficult. But I use every opportunity of putting across my principles. At every public meeting I address I make reference to the necessity for avoiding all violence and provocation. That I am perfectly honest in my beliefs is surely proved by the fact that the record of this discussion with these remarks on non-violence included in it will shortly be in the hand of thousands of Africans and Europeans throughout the Federation. What more can I do? MORRIS: What you have said should give Europeans a closer insight into your problems and temper their harsher judgements. It seems to me, however, that the root of this problem lies deeper than either difficulties of organisation, or even your personal dedication to the ideal of non-violence. The disposition toward violence is surely to be found in the inevitably negative character of your Movement's policies. Take for example the question of the boycott, which is one of your most commonly employed weapons. Under certain conditions there is nothing anti- Christian as far as I can see in boycotting institutions or activities if this is the only way that one can apply non-violent pressure upon them. The trouble is that the boycott, to be effective, must be enforced, otherwise it is a waste of time. And it is at the point of enforcement that a perfectly legitimate procedure can shade imperceptibly into violence. This is why a protracted debate took place in 19th century Britain on the question of legalising picketing during an industrial strike. The legislators found nothing legally or morally objectionable about picketing as such. Their difficulty was in trying to define peaceful picketing closely enough to prevent

THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN NATIONALISM it becoming physical intimidation in the heat of the moment. Some of the examples of violence we have heard of recently in Northern Rhodesia were not the consequences of premeditation so much as secondary effects of courses of action which in themselves were legitimate. The seeds of violence may be inherent in a perfectly proper course of action because of that action's effect upon those against whom it is directed. Or consider U.N.I.P.'s attitude to the Northern Rhodesia Constitution. You say that you reject it outright. That is well and good, provided that your followers are prepared to wait peaceably until in the process of time it is altered. If, however, their patience runs out and they resort to violent action, this seems to me to be a calculated risk of the course of action you have adopted. In other words, constitutional procedures, however unsatisfactory they might be, form a set of rules for playing a game in which much is at stake. If you decide to discard the rule book then the onus is on you to ensure that none of your team commit fouls which is a tremendous responsibility. To summarise, I would say that any policy of non-violence, no matter how sincerely intentioned, can only be relied upon not to lead to its opposite provided two conditions are fulfilled. One is that the movement's leader should have the kind of moral ascendency over his followers that the Mahatmah Ghandi had, so that it becomes an act of irreverence to defy him. The other is that the movement should believe in coherent positive policies, so that the patience of the followers is not tried to the point where they are tempted to direct action. However, enough of this. I would like to go on to a subject which is of special interest to me - the relations between African nationalism and the Churches. In recent months growing tension between the nationalist movement and the churches has come to a head. In the Northern Province, three churches in the Kafulwe

BLACK GOVERNMENT? area have been burned. Missionaries are the most common targets for virulent attacks at U.N.I.P. and other political meetings. Within the churches themselves a silent and secret struggle is going on to eradicate all missionary influence and evolve a policy line which would make the Church the spiritual wing of black nationalism. What are the roots of this tension? KAUNDA: To answer, that, let me give you a little of my personal history. I was born and brought up at a mission placeLubwa Mission. My father was the first African missionary to Northern Rhodesia from Nyasaland. I remember very clearly the work that the mission did around my place of birth. I remember, too, the genuine interest of my people round the place in upholding Christian values. Both European and African missionaries were loved by their people. For some reason very difficult to understand I found that with the increase of the European population in the country the relations that I once knew to exist between the missionaries and the people began to deteriorate. During the last ten years I have seen that gap grow and as a result at about the same time D.C.s who were also held in' high esteem by the African people began to lose the people's respects. With the increase in European population the standard of behaviour set by the early missionaries began to decline. The general African public could not appreciate the fact that an ordinary European behaved in a different way from that of a missionary. Because the bearer of Christianity to them was a European they had assumed that all Europeans must be Christians, but when they found that this was not so, they reacted not only against the European but against the missionaries. Whereas the early missionaries appeared before the African people as their champions, with the growth

THE FuTURE oF AFRICAN NATIONALISM of large European communities and greater numbers of missionaries being involved in serving them, it seems to Africans that the missionary as the voice of protest has become more and more softened until now with few exceptions, they are viewed as supporters of the European position. My own view is that the church as a whole has not, ever since the change in our society was accelerated, been outspoken enough in its criticism of what has been obviously unjust as far as the African is concerned. Recently, however, the Christian conscience has been provoked sufficiently to come out to denounce injustice. This has definitely put the Christian Church in a much stronger position than it was during the last decade. Apart from the political field, there is another direction in which I feel the Church is failing to respond to a great challenge in Central Africa. Our society is being industrialised very fast. This means an inevitable de-tribalization. The old tribal controls which played a certain important part as far as morals go are fast disintegrating. This, coupled with social and economic ills suffered by Africans, is breeding a new generation that is going to be a social problem. I venture to suggest that the Christian Church could be of great use to this new generation by filling the vacuum created by the absence of the moral sanctions. No true nationalist leader, genuinely interested in a free and independent Northern Rhodesia, would be happy to take over the reins of government in a country in which people were always half-drunk and therefore half-thinking and completely demoralised. I believe the Church has a part to play in recovering the souls of my people. I know they are partly to blame but our system of government has played a major part in bringing about this sad state of affairs. However, who is to blame as far as the Church is concerned is a side issue. The Church has a duty to perform now.

BLACK GOVERNMENT ? MORRIS: I know that the word 'missionary' has become a term of rebuke amongst Africans, and they now reflect bitterly upon their century's experience of missionary activity. The stereotype of the missionary as the agent of an imperialist government is now standard throughout Asia and Africa. An African minister told me recently that he overheard two small African children engaged in a slanging match. When one had exhausted his small vocabulary of Bemba terms of abuse, he spat out venomously the crowning insult "Missionary!" There is no doubt that the missionary has become the common target of both sides in the racial struggle. Europeans accuse him of giving the African 'ideas above his station', of encouraging him to set a value upon himself which must lead inevitably to a disruption of the present structure of our society. On the other hand, Africans villify the missionary for leaving the door open behind him when he opened up this Continent to the West, through which have since come a sordid procession of European exploiters. We have reached the sorry pass where it is almost impossible to separate in the African's mind 'Missionary Church' and 'European Government'. I am not going to deny that the sense of betrayal which you have described has solid foundations. In general, the Church in Central Africa has not established a position of independence and exerted a sustained moral pressure, which would challenge the dominant attitudes of the European community, and give any Government pause about introducing contentious racial measures. Europeans expect the Church to co-operate with the Government loyally by putting across a religious viewpoint which is in harmony with the Governmen't approach to the racial issue. Africans have long since resigned themselves to the fact that this is so.

THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN NATIONALISM "Son of Man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at-my mouth, and give them warning from me..."I1 1 Ezekiel 3: 17. God's charge to Ezekiel as he laid the austere burden of prophecy upon him stands written as a judgement upon the Church in Central Africa. That note of doom which rings like iron through the truly prophetic utterance - 'give them warning from me...' - contrasts strangely with the elaborate apologies, protestations of respect and support, and carefully muted sentiments that characterise most of the Church's resolutions to Government. The origins of the Church's involvement with Government lie deep in her history, and the pattern is common to most parts of Colonial Africa. Many of the Church's leaders are veteran missionaries who for years have worked hand in hand with Government bodies, and served on Government committees. They do not find it easy in rapidly changing circumstances to make the act of disassociation which will enable them to judge critically the present policies of Government. Often they have close ties of colleagueship and friendship with Government officials and would regard it almost as an act of disloyalty to criticise them severely. To say this is to cast no slur upon their integrity, it is to recognise that the day has gone when the missionary was a spiritual agent of a Government in their joint task of guiding the first tentative steps of a backward people along the road to civilisation. Thirty years ago, the dealings of the Governments of Central Africa with the African peoples were simple, non-controversial and primarily economic - concerned with the struggle against poverty, ignorance and disease. In this struggle the missionary could and did give Government his unreserved support. He still does. But a different set of issues have now arisen between Government and the African people which are complex, highly

BLACK GOVERNMENT? controversial and primarily political. It can no longer be assumed that European- dominated governments are necessarily right in their approach to these issues, because entrenched privilege plays as great a role as principle in determining policy. In this new struggle the missionary cannot afford to be so closely allied with Government that he is no longer free to criticise its actions and challenge its policies. It will no doubt be retorted that these veteran missionaries have often used their influence to lobby ministers privately in an effort to persuade them to alter proposed measures which the Church considered unjust or unwise. This is so, and such unseen and unpublicised influence should not be under-estimated. Nevertheless, unless one is totally cynical about democracy, in the last resort the enfranchised people are the Government. No lasting changes for the better can be brought about in any society unless the people as well as the Government are influenced or educated or shamed into making them. And it is the Church's task as the embodied conscience of society to keep ever before the privileged, the rights and needs of the under-privileged, and roundly condemn all customs, measures, and attitudes which are an affront to the Way of Jesus Christ. A conscience is only effective as long as it continues to prick. The private lobbying of Government is no substitute for the public condemnation of its inequitable policies. The Church's stand must be open and public, not least because the attitudes it seeks to change will almost certainly be found amongst its membership, and the rank and file of the Church must be brought face to face with the demands of Jesus Christ at the same time as the community. Having confessed to the flaws in the Church's witness in Central Africa, it is only fair to recognise its achievements. Missionaries came to Central Africa for two primary purposes - to confront a pagan people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to establish Churches

THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN NATIONALISM within which converts could be nurtured; and secondly, to obey the imperative demand of that Gospel to heal the sick and teach the ignorant. These two objects missionaries through great sacrifice and hardship have accomplished with great success. Indeed, the irony of the present situation is seen in the fact that there is hardly an African nationalist leader now condemning the missionary who does not owe both his education and his health to missionary enterprise. The academic tools which the African is using with great effect to traduce the missionary were forged in mission schools and colleges. But consider the missionary's dilemma in the present highly fluid situation where all the old landmarks have been obliterated. The State is rapidly assuming responsibility for the social service aspect of his work in health, education and welfare spheres. And so all-consuming is the political consciousness of the African people that even the preaching of the Gospel is fraught with highly emotional overtones. The "Simple Gospel" which deals solely with personal commitment to Christ, and ignores the social and political dimension of the life and man is no longer palatable to a people whose waking hours are spent talking and dreaming about constitutions and votes and economic advancement. On the other hand, the politically aware missionary, who is prepared to explore the relations between the Christian faith and the Social Situation, cannot bend the Gospel to accommodate every political demand that the African people are making. And because he cannot uncritically support all their nationalists aspirations, the missionary is dubbed a traitor or agent of European imperialism. So either way his position is an unenviable one. Painfully aware of these problems, the Missionary Church, to use some famous words of John Foster Dulles, is "making an agonising appraisal of the contemporary situation." Whether the outcome of this BLACK GOVERNMENT? self-examination will be the withdrawal of all European missionaries, or their adoption of an entirely new role that of sharers of a common lot with the African people instead of their mentors - it is too early to assess. But be assured that the missionaries of Central Africa, prayerfully and penitentially aware of their past mistakes, and quietly confident that all they have done which is of God will stand, are passing through fires of change as great as those which are facing the African people. A final word which needs to be said is this. The Church has not always been wrong. There is a thread of Divine truth which runs unerringly through the sombre tapestry of the Church's history in Central Africa. There are still the authentic notes of the Word from God to be heard in the Church's proclamation. And African nationalism, as well as European opinion, can only neglect them to its peril.

CHAPTER EIGHT Conclusion KAUNDA: To summarise our position, I would say this. We are not concerned solely with the rights of Africans, we are struggling for human rights-the inalienable rights of all men. We are engaged in a struggle against any form of imperialism and colonialism not because it has as its agents white men but because it has many more wrong sides than good ones. Temptations in its trends include the one worst form of constitutional arrangement - namely the concentration of powers in the hands of a small minority over the majority. It is an arrangement that will corrupt the best of men regardless of their colour, creed or religion. It is a system that tempts the privileged few to discriminate against the majority who are the havenots. The more I ponder over this issue, the more I get convinced that I am right in refusing to believe that white men do what they do against me and my people because they

BLACK GOVERNMENT? are wicked. They are in power and power corrupts. We have no justification for fighting against our present form of oppression if when we come to power we turn on our oppressors and subject them to the same indignanities we suffer at their hands. Our moral and Christian right to fight against the Government of our country rests on a determination to replace it with a system that is grounded in the Christian belief that all men are born equal in the sight of God. I should now add that I believe the only effective answer to our constitutional problems is that the British Government transfer power gracefully from the minority to the majority groups- that is to the Africans. The happiness that Africans will feel will I am almost certain, make them forget and let bygones be bygones, and so will be born in Northern Rhodesia a new state in which Black men rule not to the detriment of any one race, but to the good of all inhabitants, because the majority will have nothing to fear from minority groups. On the other hand, if the present situation is allowed to continue, suspicion and fear might explode into violence. My belief in the necessity for Black Government comes not from my desire to see Africans only in control, but from the belief that the majority Government is the only just Government. MORRIS: I believe that Kenneth Kaunda is an honest man. I say this in no spirit of condescension, but recognising that the question uppermost in the minds of Europeans into whose hands this book may fall is "Can he be trusted?". If so, then the cold sanity of the case which he has stated, whether one agrees with its content or not, is ground for confidence that hope is not yet an illusory quality in Central Africa. It is my conviction that so long as the reins of power in U.N.I.P. are in his hands, a sane, negotiated, compromised solution of our present dilemma is possible.

CONCLUSION Make no mistake about it, Kaunda is an unashamed nationalist. He will struggle within the limits of his self-imposed ideals to realise the goal which gives this book its title- Black Government. Those European politicians who dismiss him as a 'black thug' are not only slandering him, but more seriously, are making the grievous tactical error of under-estimating their opponent. He possesses one of the shrewdest political brains in Central Africa. His are the qualities which could make him either a great statesman or a dangerous demagogue, depending upon the quirks of Fate and the skill with which the situation is handled. The claims which he has made in this discussion are more difficult to assess. To most of his demands, Europeans would probably reply "Yes - but not yet!". Mary of them, indeed most of them, are not afraid of committing themselves into the hands of a black majority. They are afraid of committing themselves into the hands of an immature black majority. They dread seeing all that they have built in this arid tract of bush destroyed, not by deliberate villiany but by incompetence and irresponsibility. Yet the great question mark which hangs over Central Africa is not 'are the Africans ready to take over?' but 'how do you stop them ?'. For the impossible, the inconceivable, occur daily in Africa. Just over a year ago, white Rhodesians were looking on the situation in the Belgian Congo with envious approval. "These Belgians know how to deal with the African!" they said. Now they look on, stunned, as the jubilant Congolese Africans prepare to celebrate their independence on 30th June this year. The inconceivable is happening daily in Africa - the Congo, Tanganyika, and now Kenya. The frightening significance of these facts is beginning to penetrate the European consciousness. They no longer talk about if the African takes over, but when. The basic dilemma is really the Colonial Office's.

BLACK GOVERNMENT? Great Britain, for all the calumnies heaped upon her by embittered white settlers, has demonstrated that she is both an enlightened and realistic Colonial Power. Enlightened, in that her Colonial policy has, for the last thirty years at least, reflected a recognition that Responsible Self-Government, whether of black or white according to the balance of-races, is the inevitable terminus for British Africa. And realistic, in that she has tried to adjust the time-scale of constitutional change to the apparent degree of readiness of the peoples affected. But this slow and majestic process has again and again been rudely upset because Africa has shaken herself awake, and started to march, often in advance of the agreed time-table. For this reason there is no guarantee that the policy of gradualism will be much longer tenable in Northern Rhodesia. The transfer of power may have to take place before either the Colonial Office or European opinion feel that it is desirable or safe. For in the last resort the Colonial Office must set its clock by Africa. It can never be the other way round. Is not this the lesson of Kenya? One thing is quite clear. Most Europeans have now accepted the inevitability of African political control in Northern Rhodesia sooner or later. Many of them have now to make the next leap of understanding and realise that this catastrophic change may occur not in the dim and distant future, but tomorrow or the day after. When one reaches this point of sober realism, then the demands of Kenneth Kaunda are no longer fantastic but inevitable. By this I do not mean that he is necessarily right in his demands and should get all that he is asking for, but that his claims should no longer be regarded as delusory. They should be accepted as a basis for negotiation and discussion. This leads me naturally to my first practical point. It is the plea that Kenneth Kaunda and his fellowspokesmen should not be driven into the wilderness

CONCLUSION by the obduracy of European opinion, but that they should be drawn into discussions and consultations, and forced to submit their demands to debate and questioning. For any negotiations on the future of Northern Rhodesia carried on by the representatives of 80,000 Europeans and ignoring the spokesmen of the 2 million African inhabitants will be purely an academic exercise. Kenneth Kaunda has shown himself willing to discuss .and debate his position. He should be invited to do so before as many and varied audiences as possible. Besides clarifying his thinking (and make no mistake about it, the quality of his thinking will matter terribly to Northern Rhodesia) such appearances would give him an insight into the strength and reasonableness of moderate European opinion. It is better by far to draw African leaders into the arena of discussion than to drive them out into the wilderness to brood in bitterness. Now surely, is the time for our Government to plan for the day after tomorrow. This means that top priority should be given to the task of training African leaders in the theory and practice of Government. A positive approach to the security problem would be to send men like Kenneth Kaunda who show outstanding qualities of leadership to Britain to be given a thorough grounding in our institutions of Government. Europeans may shudder at the thought of Africans in governing positions. They will shudder even more at the reality if these Africans governors lack experience and training. Now is the time to take this step, not as a palliative but in honest recognition of the shape of the future. Some Europeans of the Backs-to-the-Wall school will doubtless label what I have said above as defeatism and capitulation. On the contrary, it is my Christian concern for the future of the European and his children which leads me to plead that we should all adjust the tempo of our thinking to the inevitable. I do not believe that it is starry-eyed idealism to claim that Europeans

BLACK GOVERNMENT? have little to fear and to lose from a transfer of a fair amount of their political power to the African people. They have two great safeguards. One is the muchmaligned Colonial Office. The other is the fact that for the foreseeable future they will control the greater share of economic power. And Kenneth Kaunda has no more desire to see Northern Rhodesia revert to primitive poverty than had Dr. Nkrumah in Ghana. This, he must realise, would be the inevitable consequence of a mass withdrawal of Europeans if African political power is abused. To some, this might seem like an argument of expediency which ill- becomes one who believes in the Christian Ethic. But it is the Christian Faith which both proclaims the worth of Man, and at the same time is under no illusions about the frailty of his human nature. There is nothing anti-Christian in demanding safeguards for minority groups. The just exercise of economic power is one such safeguard, always accepting that unbridled economic power can be as great a form of tyranny as unprincipled political power. The final ground of confidence for the Christian is the passionate belief that the strict adherence to the principles of justice, even though they seem to work to one's immediate detriment, is the only way of securing one's ultimate welfare and happiness.

COLIN MORRIS (Author of "Anything but This") THE REV. COLIN MORRIS minister of Chingola Free Church is one of the most brilliant minds in Central Africa today. He brings all the force of his intellect, and his deep awareness of Africa's political tensions, to bear upon the issues raised by Kenneth Kaunda. From the point of view of the Christian ethic he examines and analyses the claims of the African Nationalists of Northern Rhodesia. Important though it is for Europeans to take seriously the basic claims of the African Nationalists, it is doubly important for the African Nationalists in their struggle for independence to listen to the voice of the Church. Colin Morris although in basic sympathy with the African cause has seen some of its weaknesses, and has exposed a number of the falacies that underlie some of its arguments. He warns the Nationalist that while he seeks his political kingdom he must not expect all things to be added unto him.

PRICE 6/-